The Calling
by Vampyre Ttellek
Summary: Inspired by Silent Hill, with references to the Rifts RPG. About some people who are in and around a town, called Aery Waters. What is happening to them is unknown...Rated pg-13 for language and violence. Now Finished!
1. The Front Lines

**The Calling**

_A War Not to be Forgotten_

Chapter One: The Front Lines _Day one; 1:23 p.m._

"Alright you mangled sacks of shit!! Get in there!!" General Migel Butch, a recognized general in the Coalition States' army, orders a group of men to charge from their position, on ridge. At this time, the United States of America have changed to the Coalition States. Claiming that they wish for peace throughout the world, and anything that isn't human prevents this. D-bees being anything from another dimension, and what the Coalition States(C.S.)currently wage war with. The great city of Tolkeen stands strong and mystical, filled with assorted types of d-bees, monsters, practitioners of magic, and other strange beings. Tolkeen has become the target for the CS attacks...

"Sir! They're preparing the missile and are almost ready to launch the volley at the city, sir!" A troop holding a radio calls to General Migel.

"Good! We could use with some heavy firepower before we send in raids!" Migel replies. An explosions erupts a short distance away, tearing cries out from the men in the group that Migel had just sent out. General Migel motions for the next platoon to move up and prepare to charge. The platoon feels unmotivated to charge, but have little other choice. Migel then turns back to the soldier with the radio and says "Tell them they damn well better hurry up!" The soldier nods and moves away, calling into the radio. Gunshots, missiles, rockets, and other war munitions fly overhead. A rocket screeches out as it dives just past General Migel. Migel just watches it fly past him, and detonate on the ground behind him. A pack of humanoid demons climb over the ridge and cry out, just before the platoons of soldiers open fire on them. Another demon, sails down from the clouds and drops a sack of explosives into the gathering of soldiers, just a little way down the ridge. The explosion is so great that General Migel almost loses his balance, from where he is.

Another demon with two claws sticking far out from it's body, which are straight and hook at the end, starts climbing the ridge. It stops midway up the ridge and starts using the large claws to tear into the ground, tunnelling through. It burrows inside the ridge and continues digging, slightly angled upward. The huge pincers pierce through the surface and hook through an unlucky soldier's waist. The pincers open wide, then clamp down tight, cleaving the soldier at the stomach. Migel looks furious and calls out "They're usin' Pincers now!! Kill that thing and fill in that god damn hole!!" The soldiers open fire on the pincer, which has little affect, but in their massed number, manage some damage to the beast. The hooks swipe along the ground, slashing through a soldier's leg, then dig into another's chest. Before the demon can do anything more, it's killed. A troop stands up to General Migel.

"The V3's are ready, sir!!" The troop calls to the general, referring to the preparation of the V3 rockets. The V3s being advanced from the V1 and V2 rockets, used ages ago from this time, in the second world war. Which is long forgotten, buried into unread books, and the memories fade away in graves. The general pats the troop on the shoulder, notices the man's smile, which deteriorates in an instant. Blood stains the ground from the troop's neck. Migel frowns for a second, then picks up the radio and starts yelling into it.

"Fire those god damn things! We've been sittin' out here getting our asses handed to us for an hour already!!" The receiver on the radio acknowledges and there is a large flash, followed by a loud grumble, and extreme hissing sound, as the V3 rockets are launched from their site, a few miles away. The huge tubes of death scream overhead of General Migel and his platoons. The wind rushes violently from the rockets, being but a mere 40 feet above the heads of the soldiers. General Migel thrusts his arm forth and charges over the ridge, leading the raids of soldiers. Instantly, Migel begins firing his machine gun at countless monsters and demons, scattered about the battlefield. A giant hook comes piercing through the ridge and falls against General Migel,

pulling him into the ridge. The body of the pincer crawls through the dirt and the other hook stands out, to strike General Migel. Migel's machine gun has fallen to the ground, but he grabs his pistols on his waist and starts firing at the beast's face. The other hook snaps down and gouges through the left chest to shoulder area, of General Migel. He calls out in pain, as his left arm falls down to the ground, spilling blood across the battle scarred dirt. Still alive, Migel continues shooting at the pincer, cursing it with each shot. The beast tears the hook from Migel's body and snaps it back down again.

The platoons march over the ridge and shift into lines as they charge across the exploding battlefield. Other platoons of soldiers charge forth in the raid along them. Several soldiers are shot as they charge forth. One platoon is massacred by a group of pincers, just as they reach the bottom of the ridge. Another volley of V3 rockets screech overhead, destined for the great city's walls. A powerful mage weaves some spell and an eerie ball of glowing cyan light appears far above the city. The giant explosives turn and are driven toward the ball of light, hitting it and warping out of existence. Near the light, a Coalition ship flies by, firing off rounds of ammunition at dragons flying in the red sky. The pilot, a woman in her late twenties, with blonde hair left loosely at the sides of her neck, calls for assistance through the speaker. When her special assistance is denied, she starts yelling and cursing. "Corporal Lenart!! We can't spare any back up to assist at the current moment!! We are mobilizing ground units and the air raids are not to take place for another twenty minutes!!" Corporal Lenart continues yelling and cursing, then stops, frustrated, and continues onward. Other ships are scattered throughout the skies, battling flying beasts. A man in power armour, which is a suit of armour that has been equipped with additional weaponry and advancements, flies up beside Corporal Lenart. She turns to notice the man and nods to him.

"It's about time I got some help. I've been out here for an hour and a half. My missiles are out and rail guns are pretty low." Corporal Lenart calls through the radio. The man in power armour acknowledges and flies up on top of Corporal Lenart's ship and sets his feet into the latches on top. He holds up his rail gun and starts firing outward at the aerial beasts. A dragon, full of battered and charred scales, beats it's wings as it flies towards Corporal Lenart's general direction. She notices the dragon and, knowing that she is definitely out powered against a dragon, lowers her altitude and makes a turn. The dragon continues onward, demolishing all of the ships brave, or stupid, enough to fly near it. The number of beasts in the air seem to be rather low, but there still remains the few dragons that decided to attack the air units. Corporal Lenart calls through the radio "What the hell happened?! Everything up here's gone, there's only a few dragons left..."

"Isn't that a good thing?" A voice calls in response.

"No, because they must have some kind of plan or massive raid that they're just about to use. There is no way they would drop that easily." She looks about, confused. At this time, there is only one dragon remaining amongst the scattered amounts of Coalition ships. She lowers her speed, slowly coming to a halt, hovering in the one spot. Looking around, Corporal Lenart notices several other ships have come to halts. Corporal Lenart calls through the radio, "This is Corporal Lenart, requesting permission to return to Coalition skies." The radio is silent for a moment.

Finally a reply comes through the radio, "Request denied. If we pull out our air forces now we will be wide open for aerial attack. Stay in those clouds and wait." Corporal Lenart sighs, rolls her eyes, then starts moving again, slowly raising her altitude. Another volley of V3 rockets cruise through the air at their relatively low altitude, straying towards the city, but once again a spell is used to redirect the massive explosives. The skies clear of all Tolkeen forces, with a dragon, turning to head back. Corporal Lenart calls through the radio to suggest an aerial assault, which is rejected. Corporal Lenart sets the ship to cruising speed and glides throughout the skies, waiting for her call to return to base...


	2. A Strange Visit

**Chapter Two: A Strange Visit**_ Day one; 12:00 p.m., noon_

Inside the great walls of Tolkeen, a small, old, but sturdy church stands. Inside the confessional booth, a man pleads for help through tears. The father in the other side listens intently, and attempts to comfort the man, but the man is overwhelmed with fear. Fear that the city is going to be over run and destroyed. He does not want his family, especially his two daughters and son to face the horror of being savagely attacked by racist soldiers, even though they're human. The man finishes, and feels slightly comforted, as he exits the church. The priest sits a moment before coming out. Upon exiting the booth, he finds that there is a woman, laying beside the pedestal, on the floor. Assuming there has been an injury, the priest runs to the woman, and discovers it to be an elderly woman, wearing dark robes, her gray hair laid out around her head, covering her face, which is pressed on the floor. The priest kneels and touches the woman's shoulder. Receiving no reaction, the priest pulls away for a moment, then turns the woman over. Right away, the elderly lady grabs the priest hands and stares at him with wide, phlegm-yellow eyes. Peering into his soul and thoughts. Her mouth open creating a look of surprise and fear. The stare pierces the priest, and he feels paralysed, staring at the strange old woman.

"Father... Aryus... you must... leave..." A raspy voice squeaks out from under the woman's breath, her mouth barely moving with her words. Father Aryus, the priest, shakes his head.

"I can't leave. I must stay here and ensure that the people have no fear of what may happen." He pauses a moment, "Are you alright? I didn't hear, nor see you come in. What were you doing?" The woman's stare changes slightly, almost like it is piercing Aryus' very own head just for saying something in defiance towards her. The look then turns to a worried face and the low, raspy voice squeaks once again.

"If ... you stay here ... you will die. You must go. You know ... the path. Taking anyone will only ... cause problems." Aryus pulls back a bit from this remark. The woman's eyes glaze a moment then call out, "GOOOOO!!!!" Her head then falls back, and her face stares off at nothing. Aryus looks at her a minute, both confused and scared. He slowly moves his hand to her wrist, and affirms her non-existent pulse. Standing up, Aryus decides to take the woman's words into consideration. He steps away from the body, and turns towards the church doors. He walks over and looks out. People shuffling through the streets in fear stumble past the church. Aryus reaches out and takes hold of the large door handles and pulls them in, closing them. Sliding a deadbolt through the lock, Aryus takes a deep breath. Slowly he turns, then hurriedly heads to a door at the other side of the church. Through the door, Aryus comes to a small office. He goes over to the desk and places his hands on the side of the wooden structure. Pushing the desk aside, he reveals a rug, which covers a door. Retrieving a key from his pocket, Aryus, unlocks the trap door and pulls it open. Dust explodes out of the ancient opening and fills the air, causing Aryus to cough a few times, before he puts his sleeve to his mouth and waving the dust away from his face.

Inside the gloomy tunnel, only the sound of footsteps echo throughout the dark and dismal hole. Aryus walks at a bit of a quicker pace through the tunnel, unable to naturally see what lies ahead of him, but making his way through the single tunnel which he knows has no direct corners or branching tunnels. Suddenly a strange, screech reverberates through the black chasms and cry out in Aryus' head, causing an extremely high pitched ringing to slice his ears open. Clutching the sides of his skull, Aryus falls to his knees, screaming. he then comes to realize that the noise has stopped, and he had been screaming longer than it was ringing. Now all that he hears is an eerie siren in the far distance, not far from an air-raid warning, but a distant siren. Aryus stops to contemplate this a moment, and realizes that it simply isn't possible for a siren to be ringing like that in a tunnel. A bit frightened, but curious, Aryus breaks into a run through the blinded tunnels.


	3. The Forgotten General

**Chapter Three: The Forgotten General**_ Day two; 6:30 a.m._

His eyes slowly pull themselves open. Sleep has obviously drained life from the face. Cuts, bruises, and blood litter the beaten skin. The bloodshot eyes blink a few times, then widen for a moment. A hand slams on the ground in front of the face and the head lifts up. General Migel sits up and looks around at the unknown scenery. Around him appears to be the battle grounds of the war, the wasteland outside of Tolkeen. However, the city of Tolkeen is not there. There is nothing around. No dead bodies, no trees, nothing. Just the rolling hills, reaching past the horizon. As Migel looks down, he is utterly bewildered. His arm which had been torn off before has come back. It's not a synthetic arm either, almost as if it has grown back. Looking over himself, Migel realizes that his armour suit has taken severe damage, and is of no use any more. Taking the scraps of the armour off, he also comes to realize that all of his equipment has been removed, all except a pistol, a Desert Eagle. All the ammo that he had previously, has been removed, and some of it replaced with bullets for the Desert Eagle. Migel reaches to his waist and pulls out his radio. Turning on the radio, he only hears a light static. The frequency is set to the general line, but there seems to be no response from him pinging through. Satisfied that the radio has been broken, Migel tosses it away and walks out. Unsure of where to go, he wanders out in the vast wasteland.

Ten minutes of walking through the wasteland, Migel comes to what appears to be a hole in the ground which seems to lead into some kind of cave. Walking inside, Migel becomes a bit comforted that he has found something which could lead him somewhere productive. The ancient-looking cave opens up into a large, round area, which appears to be a place where someone must live. A gathering of grass and leaves are piled in a corner, forming a bed, with an imprint, showing that they have been used for some time. Along the walls, strange paintings are scattered. All the paintings seem to have been made with a very dark crimson red liquid, possibly dried blood. In another corner, stands some kind of weapon rack, wielding a collection of spears. The spears look as if they had been hand-carved from wood. With a wooden shaft and a sharpened point. Migel decides to go take a look outside if maybe there's any other holes, but when he turns, he finds that the opening has changed. It is no longer just a hole in the side of a hill, but almost like an underground hideout. A hole in the roof creates the entrance. A short rope ladder hangs from the hole, which failed to exist earlier. Migel decides to climb the rope ladder out and take a look around, to maybe find out where he is.

When Migel exits the cave, he finds that he is no longer in any kind of wasteland. Around him, long grass shines, trees are specked with the occasional bird or other animal, and a scent of sweet grass infiltrates the air. A cleared foot path leads out into the jungle and winds in the thick bush and breaks vision. Suddenly footsteps reach Migel's ears. Confused, but cautious, Migel leaps into the bushes to the side of the hole. He lays there a moment, checking that his body is concealed from view. The slow-paced footsteps come closer. A low, grumbling sound utters out, almost like that of a human, but just a grumble. The footsteps sound as if to reach the hole, then stop. The air becomes dead in silence for a moment. Migel then hears a peculiar sound, almost like sniffling. Migel's eyes widen, realizing that whatever it is that stands there, must be able to smell him. The sounds of sniffing stop, and a footstep crunches into the bush, coming toward Migel. Impulsively, Migel leaps up and swings around, pointing out the Desert Eagle.

Standing before Migel, a humanoid stares at Migel. It's face looks old and has plenty of wrinkles and scars in the pale grey skin. The humanoid wears nothing more than a rag, hanging around it's waist. It's skinny fist clench onto a pipe of some kind. All over it's body, it is covered with hundreds of cuts and scars. In it's chest are what appears to be a pair of bullet holes, both with dried blood around them. Another bullet hole resides in the demon's shin, in the other shin, a gash. The handle of a screwdriver protrudes from the top of it's shoulder, still pouring blood slowly over it's chest and arm. Migel looks at the demon man a moment, a bit shocked at it's appearance. The demon man freezes in a look of surprise, it's bloody mouth open wide, with trickles of blood and saliva drying on it's chin.

"Back up and drop the pipe." Migel says calmly, but intently to the creature. The demon man

remains in it's position of a dead stare at Migel. "I will shoot you." Still the demon man remains motionless. Confused and angry, Migel squeezes the trigger on the pistol, planting a bullet in the demon man's head, just above it's right eye. The man's head, pulls back, a moment, it's eyes shut tight in shock. It then brings it's head down, to face the ground before it. Raising it's head, the demon opens it's eyes in a harsh glare. Another bullet penetrates the demon's cheek, spraying a small amount of blood behind it. Realizing the shots aren't working very well, Migel fires a few more times, shooting it right in the face. The demon man remains in the same position, several bullet holes decorating it's face. Migel gets a confused look on his face and pulls the trigger again, only to hear a click of an empty chamber.

"Aw fu..." The demon suddenly lunges at him, knocking the gun out of his hands and shoving him off his feet. Migel quickly lashes out with his foot into the stomach of the demon, but it reacts like it was nothing. Raising the pipe, the demon takes a swing and hits Migel in the chest with it. It then holds it to the side and starts beating Migel in the ribs on his side, turning him over. Migel kicks out his leg again, this time hitting the scarred shin, and knocking the demon over. Quickly getting up, Migel kicks the pipe away, and starts stomping aggressively on the demon's chest. The creature's long arms spring out and grab hold of Migel's knees, and pull him down. As quickly as possible, Migel sits up and punches the demon right in the nose, breaking it and bending it to the side. The demon man lets out a loud shriek and grabs hold of Migel's throat. Migel's reflexes flair up and slam his hands on the wrists of the demon man's, then to the demon's neck. Squeezing extremely tightly, the demon cuts off circulation to Migel's head. Migel's grip on the thing's throat appears ineffective, and Migel begins to panic. Grabbing hold of the screw driver in the demon's shoulder, Migel tears it out the front of the creature's body. The vice around Migel's throat, loosens slightly, but still cutting off air. In a desperate attempt for his life, Migel thrusts the screw driver into the demon's throat several times, making a large mess of it's neck. The grip loosens completely around Migel's throat, and the demon falls back, it's head barely attached to it's body. Gasping for air, Migel sits up, looking over the demon man. He reaches up and begins massaging his throat. Migel glances at the screw driver for a moment, then tosses to the side. "God damn, thing almost killed me."

Looking around, Migel finds the Desert Eagle once again, and grabs the pipe as well. Upon examination, Migel finds dried blood stains on one end of the pipe. Migel turns around and walks to the hole and starts looking around. Finding little else than the path, Migel decides to walk through the jungle, in hopes of finding something which might help him come into contact with the army somehow.

After walking for a little bit, Migel comes to what appears to be a swamp. The swamp's murky green water has specks of blood throughout it. Bits and pieces of rotting flesh and bones litter the swamp grounds. Migel's nostrils burn to the strong scent of decay, and he brings his arm up to his face. Migel releases the empty clip from the gun, and throws it into the deeper water, then reaches for another one to reload the gun. Just as he cocks the pistol, a few ripples spread out across the water. Migel, thinking the worst, backs away from the swamp water. In the deep water, a shape begins to rise to the surface. First, a pair of long, thin horns, then a head and body. The eyes, triangular with thin pupils, and huge gaping maws open, ready to attack. The arms at it's side differ from each other, one being irregularly larger than the other, both with long, clawed, fingers. It's ribs bearing through it's skin, and the imprint of a screaming face, presses up from it's stomach. One leg, long and slender, with a long, clawed, foot attached to the end. The other leg, more muscular, and has three joints, with a smaller foot on it's end. All over it's body, it is littered with strange patches, almost like it has leprosy. The demon stands there, somehow standing on water, staring intently at Migel. Migel stares back, paralysed.

"Why did I have to wake up something like that?" Thinks Migel in regret. The great beast remains there, glaring at Migel, barely moving, just water dripping off of it's body. A slight groan finds it's way out of the beast's throat. The monster's foot then rises, and moves forward. Migel instantly, holds up the Desert Eagle, ready to fire. The beast's other leg takes a step. Migel loses his second thought and opens fire on the beast, penetrating it's skin on it's chest. The demon breaks into a run at Migel, it's jaws stretched out, and saliva flying from them. Migel starts backing

up, while firing. The bullets appear to have little effect on the creature. Raising it's larger set of claws, the demon leaps through the air at Migel. Instinctively, Migel jumps to the side, and rolls, dodging the attack. When Migel gets up and aims his gun, the beast is gone. He sharply whips around, searching for it, aiming the pistol everywhere. There's no sign of the monster.

"What the hell?! That thing is too damn big to disappear like that!!" Suddenly a thought strikes, that the demon probably could've submerged in the swamp again. Giving the swamp a bit of an inspection, Migel finds no evidence of the monster. A ripple erupts from the water, suddenly. Migel instantly aims the gun at the water. A heavy breath sounds from behind him. Migel's eyes flare up immensely. Quickly he whips around and fires the gun twice into the beast's stomach. The beast throws out it's bigger arrangement of blades, slashing Migel's side and pushing him over. Migel drops the gun with his fall and reaches, helplessly toward the pistol. The beast suddenly throws it's face right in front of the gun and lets out a bone-cracking screech. A pipe suddenly sails through the air, striking the assailant across the face, knocking it to the side a little. Migel takes the opportunity, to get up and hits the beast in the neck again with the pipe. A sharp pain injects into Migel's lower chest and stomach. Migel looks down to see the demon's hand pressed against his body, with it's index finger buried in his rib cage. Realizing that the demon now has the capability to destroy his ribcage, he swings the pipe down on the demon's arm, pulling the claw out the hole it came in through. Slamming the pipe continuously against the swamp beast's chest and head, it slowly falls under his power.

"Die you stupid piece of shit!! I'll teach you to stab me!!" The beast cowers under the flailing pipe and the cursing man. Migel stops and stands up, looking down at the severely beaten antagonist, breathing heavily. Migel steps back and throws a wad of spit on the demon, and curses it again, "Piece a shit..." Turning around, Migel is taken aback. His face glazed with confusion. Standing before him, is the demon man that he thought he had killed. It's neck covered with cuts, and it's nose still broken to the side. It's face looks like that of excessive anger. In it's right hand, it wields the screwdriver, used previously to kill it.

"What the hell?!?! I _killed_ you!!" The demon man rolls his eyes back into his skull, and lets out a hellish scream, it's mouth opened wide. The pipe suddenly stuffs itself into the demon man's mouth. The pipe retracts and slams into the demon man's chest a few more times, pulling it to the ground, once again. "Show you for screamin' at me." Migel clutches his ribs and examines them, finding blood pouring relentlessly out of the gash. Migel looks around for some kind of cloth aside from his clothes, and finds some kind of rags on the demon man's waist. Migel takes the rags and wraps them around his ribs, to prevent the bleeding.

Satisfied that his wound is sealed, Migel looks back at the swamp beast. A strange kind of crimson smoke arises from the beast's body. The wounds on it appear to be healing slowly. The blood remains, but the holes have began sealing themselves. "What the, " Migel stares at the body of the swamp beast, laying there on the ground, it's hand beginning to twitch, "Damn things can't even stay dead!"

Migel turns and starts running through the swamp. The swamp doesn't appear as the safest place, but is the only place which could lead to something. Stomping through the dark, murky water, Migel charges off. A siren blares out in the distance.


	4. An Unwanted Encounter

**Chapter Four: An Unwanted Encounter**_ Day one; 2:15 p.m._

Atop the clouds, in the smeared, orange sky, a Coalition ship cruises. Inside, Corporal Lenart becomes agitated and bored with flying around. The skies have emptied themselves of life aside from her. Not even any other Coalition ships are in the air anymore. "Where the hell did all the others go?" Corporal Lenart asks herself, spying out across the clouds. She tries using her radio to contact main base, but the radio has lost contact. She lowers her altitude to below the clouds, searching for any sign of other Coalition air forces. The skies remain desolate of other life. Corporal Lenart, getting confused, tries using the radio again, but the radio only gives her static. She turns the radio down a little bit so the static doesn't hurt her ears and continues flying. Gradually, the static becomes louder. The volume on the radio hasn't been touched at all, but the static remains in it's accelerating noise. Suddenly the static cuts, and one of the ship's rear boosters blow out. The explosion tears off the steering wing on that side and the ships begins plunging downward. Corporal Lenart realizes she has no other choice, and hits the eject. The button is broken and she takes it right off by pushing it.

"NO!! These ships are inspected!! I couldn't have missed that being broken!!" Corporal Lenart panics, propelling to wards the ground. Tears roll down her cheek and she lets out a shriek.

In the forest, a group of people stand in a clearing, watching the ship falling down towards them. They all remain there, waiting for the ship to plummet into the ground before them, and salvage whatever they can from the wreck. The ship comes within 20 feet of the ground, when it's emergency thrusters flare out at an extreme intensity. The force is enough to blow over all the people standing there, and stop the ship for a couple seconds, before it falls onto the ground. Without even half of a second to spare, the people crowd to the ship, tearing it apart. One of the people slams their body onto the glass of the ship, staring down the barrel of a machine gun. A hysterical hissing blares out and lasers erupt from the cockpit. The enraged pilot jumps out on top of the fallen ship, and starts firing wildly at all the people around her.

All of the people are humanoids, but all have no clothing, several scars on their bodies, and most of them have some kind of weapon plunged into their body. Some with knives sticking out of them, some with axes, hatchets, spears, arrows, and piercing tools of the sort. They demon people swarm up around Corporal Lenart, attempting to climb up and attack, but She is quick enough with the machine gun to hold them all at bay. Corporal Lenart stops to reload the gun, and realizes that the demon people have stopped. All of them in a state in which no normal human could live with. Bullet holes scored over all of them add to the collection of damage to their bodies. They're all just standing there, staring intently at Corporal Lenart. She finishes reloading and takes advantage of the situation, and fires off more rounds amongst the creatures. The clan of demon people fall under the fire of the machine gun, and all of them begin emitting a strange crimson-coloured smoke. Corporal Lenart checks the gun, and discovers that it only has a few more shots left in it, and she doesn't have any other clips.

Tossing the gun, Corporal Lenart jumps down from atop the crashed ship. She starts searching through the bodies for any kind of weapon that she could take from them and use to defend herself with. A rather large collection of weapons exists in the bodies of all the demon people, but the majority of them are broken. Satisfied with a pick axe that was sticking out of one of the demons' back, she stands and examines the blade. Corporal Lenart looks up, and instantly becomes frightened. Standing before her, is another of the demon people, just staring at her, it's hands raised above it's head, holding a brick. It squints it's eyes and sticks out it's tongue, laughing crazily. The brick suddenly flies through the air and strikes Corporal Lenart in the head, knocking her unconscious...


	5. An Unknown Town

**Chapter Five: An Unknown Town**_ Day one; 1:05 p.m._

Father Aryus emerges from the tunnel into, what appears to be a drainage hole. There is very little water flowing from the ditch and down into another tunnel. Aryus leaps across the opening, landing in the ditch. Cautiously, he lifts his head above the edge of the ditch, looking around. He realizes that he is in some kind of town. On the corner of two residential streets. The roads seem vacant of life and vehicles. Suddenly he notices a back yard gate swing open and a person come through. It's a man. A man wearing a torn up, beige shirt with dried blood characterizing it, and torn up jeans which have blood on them as well. On his head, is placed a baseball cap. In one hand, the man is carrying a handgun of some kind, in the other, is a bucket filled with an eerie red liquid. The man looks in Aryus' direction and the father ducks down into the ditch, hoping he wasn't seen. He closes his eyes, with "Please don't see me." Repeating in his head over and over.

Suddenly, a vision comes to him. It's almost as if he is seeing through the demon's eyes. He can see everything around the demon man. It continues walking around to the front door, and heads inside. The house has been rummaged through quite a bit. The rug is torn up, couch over-turned, kitchen utensils scattered about, and the wallpaper has several tears. The demon man walks over to the counter in the kitchen and puts the bucket on it. Looking in the bucket, the liquid seems red, almost like blood, but somehow different. The demon's hand reaches into the bucket, scooping up some of the strange liquid and raises it to it's mouth.

Father Aryus shakes his head and blinks rapidly, coming out of the vision. He is confused as to how he could do such a thing, but takes advantage of the situation and runs across the street, to another house where the demon man won't be able to see him. He quietly walks around the house, towards the door. Approaching the door, Aryus pushes it open and closes it, quietly, and slowly. A hand suddenly falls on Aryus' shoulder. His eyes widen and he takes a gasp. The hand pulls him around. Aryus is relieved to see a normal human standing there.

It's a young woman, in her late teens to early twenties of age. She's wearing a pale grey trench coat over a black shirt, and jeans. Around her neck hangs a necklace with a peculiar looking symbol on it, of a triangle with an empty eye in the centre, and three shapes which appear to be like tears. Her long blonde hair sprawled out over the top of her coat, and her bright blue eyes shine in the light.

"You scared me. Do you know what's going on around here?" Aryus blurts out.

"This is a place called Aery Waters. It is a place which is not unknown, but it is not known to truly exist. This is a place where no one can die. People who are brought here are all normal people, but they have been chosen as sacrifices." She pauses a moment and raises her hand to Aryus, "I know. Yes, Sacrifices. Sacrifices for the god of this place. There will be three people who are chosen to commit themselves to the ritual. Two will be of warrior type, and another of religious type. You must be the religious one that has been chosen. The people here will try to kill you, and if they do, they will take your body to a ceremonial island and commence the ritual. The ritual grants these people eternal life and power, and must take place once every year." The woman explains.

"Is there any way that I..." The woman interrupts Aryus before he completes his sentence.

"Yes, there is a way for you to survive, and avoid being sacrificed. You must find the other two people and commit a ritual to banish the spell upon this town. To do this, you will need to get to the ritual island and commit it there. The island has a cemetery and a church on it. This church's bells are to be feared. When they ring, it means that the ritual will commence soon. It will call an extreme amount of the demons to the island." She pauses for a moment. "You're wondering about that vision you had earlier. When people come here, they become blessed. They are blessed with a certain ability. You have divinitive abilities. These abilities let you see through other people's eyes. Soon it will advance and you will be able to hear and feel what that person hears and feels. To advance this ability, you will have to find an altar and commit a ceremony, which will take

power from the god and place it in you. You will have to find these altars in order to become powerful enough to defeat the demons in this town. After advancing enough, you will even gain the capability of taking complete control over others."

Aryus shakes his head, taking all this information in at once. "How do you know all this? How did you know that I had that vision?"

The woman seems a bit agitated to the question as if she has been asked the same one several times before. "I have my own kind of divinitive abilities which allow me to know things like that. As well, I know all this, because I have been here for a long time, perhaps too long. You might also get some other abilities too, by the way." She suddenly ducks down, staring at the window. The demon man looks inside, grins then heads to the door. "Hurry, get away from the door and windows. That demon knows we're in here!" Aryus runs over to the wall, waiting, in hope that the woman can defend them from the demon.

The door slams open, the demon man standing there, lifting the gun to shoot the woman. The forearm of the demon suddenly falls off, blood spattering on the wall behind it. The woman stands there, wielding a wakizashi in a ready stance. The blade passed through so quickly, that it remains cleaned and spotless. The demon looks down at his missing arm, blood pouring into a puddle on the floor. The sword swings again, decapitating the demon. Blood paints the door and the head drops to the ground, with the body following it. The woman turns, sheathing the deadly blade. She bends over and grabs the magnum from the detached arm of the demon and holds it out to Aryus.

"Take this, you ought to need it. In case you're wondering, by the way, when you kill these demons, they won't stay dead. Smoke will rise from them, signifying that they're regenerating. They'll get up within about three minutes of you killing them, so just watch yourself."

Aryus reaches out, takes the gun and holds it at his side, "Thank you."

"Well, Father, I wish you the best of luck, but I have to go now. I have to go find the others and tell them what they must do. You have to try and find the island, and any altars that you can." Without another word, the woman runs out the door, and down the street. Aryus stands there, a bit confused. He looks down at the body on the floor, just inside the door. The strange smoke begins to rise from the corpse.

Father Aryus, exits the house, the woman is already scarce from sight. Aryus think to himself, "Didn't even catch who she was..." Aryus begins jogging down the street, eventually coming to an alleyway. Up ahead, a demon man, carrying a shovel walks around the corner. Afraid, Aryus, runs into the alley. Passing a fence, a dog in a back yard jumps at the fence, barking with a hellish tone. The dog has a hole through one ear, several cuts all over it's body, and a ferocious set of teeth. It's eyes lack pupils, and are of a bloodshot yellow colour. Hearing the noise, a demon man comes charging out of the house with a rifle. Seeing Aryus, it runs to the gate and lets out the dog to chase him. Aryus turns, just in time to catch the dog lunging at him, tackling him to the ground. Aryus lets out an agonized scream as the dog bites down on his arm. He can hear the demon man cheering the dog on, from past it. Struggling with the canine, Aryus manages to throw it off of him. The dog quickly scrambles to get up and attack again. The air cracks loudly. The dog drops instantly, a bullet hole freshly buried in it's head. Aryus turns to the demon man, standing there, who is now surprised. The demon raises the rifle, but the air cracks again from a second gun shot, and a hole appears in the demon's throat. It's eyes start pulsing, blood pours out of the wound, and it drops to the ground.

"Have to get out of here!" Aryus yells to himself as he turns and runs through the alleyway. He keeps running, ignoring the pain in his arm. He eventually comes through another alley to a library. On a sign it reads: **Tellek Library**. Below the writing is a symbol drawn in blood. The symbol is the same as the woman's necklace, a triangle with an empty eye, and tears. Aryus walks up to the large wooden doors, and pulls them out.

Entering the large library, Aryus looks around. It's rather dark inside, with no lights on. Before him, is the check-out desk. To his left is stairs, and to the right, leads to the shelves. The doors slam behind Aryus, and send a loud bang throughout the entire library. Aryus turns and discovers that the doors have locked themselves, as if there's a deadbolt on the other side. Not being strong enough to break through the big wooden doors, Aryus turns towards the bookshelves. A shadow appears around the corner of the desk.

First comes a massive, tri-toed foot. Following the foot, a large, muscular leg, linking to a massive body. A great big mouth, open wide, with drool falling to the ground before it. Three tentacle protrude out from just above the mouth, two with eyes on them, and the third with a whole head on it's end. The beast has smooth, crimson to gray skin, reaching over it's body and three legs, and an arm which ejects from the demon's back.

Aryus stands there, in shock at the sight of the beast. He quickly looks around for some alternative to fighting the demon. At the other side of the reception desk, is stairs. Aryus breaks out in a run to the stairs, the giant assailant quickly pursues, growling at Aryus. He slams his hands on the doors, which appear to be locked. Aryus turns around just in time, to notice the beast jumping at him. Aryus dodges quickly to the side, the beast flying past him, smashing the doors as well as the stairs beyond them. He instantly starts running across the library. The beast gets up from the crash and starts after him. Aryus hides in amongst the book shelves. The demon hurries over, and starts searching the rows. Suddenly, one of the bookshelves tips over and falls right on top of the monster. Aryus runs past it, just as it throws the shelf off of it. Aryus starts climbing the wreckage of the stairs. A clawed hand grabs hold of Aryus' leg and throws him away from the stairs. The demon comes over to Aryus, on the ground. The beast towers over him, immensely. It's maws open wider, and saliva pours out even more. Aryus instinctively starts firing the handgun. A bullet flies into the monster's mouth, and backs it away. Aryus gets up and dashes away, heading past the shelves. He fires the gun again, shattering a window, and jumps out. The demon recovers, instantly and pursues after Aryus, leaping out the window. The beast lands and looks around, confused. Aryus, pulls himself back into the library, through the broken window. The demon turns around to see Aryus making a break for the stairs.

Aryus climbs up the stairs and runs to the second floor. The beast jumps back into the building, and heads to the stairs. Just as it starts up the steps, a shelving unit, then a desk fly over the railing of the second floor, landing on top of the demon. Aryus continues running, heading for the roof access.

The roof door, flies open and cracks loudly, when it hits the wall around it. Aryus runs through, and up to the edge. He looks over, seeing that he's about three stories high. Glancing back, Aryus notices the demon, rampaging through the stairs, and smashing the door right off. Aryus eliminates any second thought and jumps off the edge, falling to the ground, with a painful thud. He instantly hurries towards the houses, seeking refuge. Adrenaline pulsing vastly through his body. The giant monster, leaps off the roof of the library and starts after Aryus. He runs to a house, and barges through the door.

The beast comes smashing through the doorway, searching for the priest. It slowly paces across the room, heading towards the kitchen. The demon stops a moment, glancing around. Two feet plant themselves on the monster's back. The eyes and the head whip around, just before seeing Aryus chop the back arm right off, with a shovel. Aryus then grasps the shovel tightly, and drives it into the body of the beast. He retracts it, and continues attacking it with the garden tool, several times, before it falls over and dies.

Aryus stands there, gasping for air, wielding the shovel tightly in his hands. He catches his breath, and drops the weapon. Looking around, Aryus notices that, there's a fireplace, with a particularly large mantle, which has several candles placed on it, as well as a goblet, a painting, and two unlit torches. On a shelf beside the mantle, lays several fire-starting equipment.

"This must be what that woman was referring to." Aryus thinks to himself, walking over to the

altar. He reaches over to the shelf, grabbing a lighter, and lights the candles. He reaches up to one of the torches, but flames rise up inside of it, before he touches it. He looks down at the goblet, and watches as dark blood begins rising inside of it. He stares at it, as if in a trance. The goblet fills to near the lip, before the liquid ceases increasing itself. Aryus' hand takes hold of the handle and lifts it to his lips, drinking a sip of the blood, which has a wine-like taste, but is excessively strong. He quivers and drops the goblet, spilling the liquid all over, due to it's strength. Aryus, feels faint, and waves around a little bit, getting a head spin.

The wind shoves through the bushes outside, and the earth vibrates for an instant. Everything calms, then the priest lifts his head to the air, and bellows out a horrendous shriek. The ground rumbles, glass shatter, and a light sprays forth from the altar, just before flames grow out of it, and burn the sacred placing. The altar burns, then the flames put themselves out.

Aryus walks out the door, unsure of what has just happened. He raises his hand, feeling the light breeze across his fingertips. He returns his hand to his side, and walks off, down the street...


	6. Discovery

**Chapter Six: Discovery **_Day two; 8:10 a.m._

The lake is vast and dark. The crimson sun paints a glare across the still water. The sand remains settled, to the bottom of the lake, where hands of the dead stretch forth. Light mist rises from the cool waters. The mist quickly becomes a dense fog, swallowing the sun and consuming vision. Through the fog, a figure forms. A small boat, comes drifting through. Standing in it, a slender figure, holding something at it's side stands in the centre of the boat. The face looks up and swirling red eyes glare.

Migel snaps out of his day dream. He finds himself running through the forest. The swamp is back quite a bit now. He starts walking, tuckered out from running for so long. He checks his gun, ensuring that it's loaded, then looks up. When he resets his view, he finds himself looking towards a building in the woods. He continues toward the building, finding it to look like an old house or cottage. Rotting wood planks form walls. A scattered layer of fungus coats the building. Termites have obviously eaten at some places on the house.

Migel steps up to the entrance to the house. The wood beneath him creeks, loudly. He reaches out to the screen door. Pulling it open, releases a loud screeching. Migel is about to knock, when he rethinks about doing so, and just takes the knob, letting himself inside.

The door opens up into a small hall. To the left is a living room, the right is a bedroom, then stairs. On the further left side is the kitchen and dining room. Migel steps in, slowly releasing the creaking door. He looks around, finding little more than a collection of dust. Migel walks to the kitchen, where it has been cleared out. Knives, silver-ware, pots, pans, and other things of the sort, are all gone. The cupboards reside in dust, half open. Migel doubts any life having existed here for quite some time, if ever. Suddenly, a noise comes from upstairs. A sound like, a heavy footstep, almost. Migel instantly holds up his Desert Eagle and walks over to the stairs, cautiously.

Coming up the stairs, the floor squeaks under Migel's foot. He then hears a gasp from a room up ahead. Migel instinctively holds out his gun, ready for something to come out and attack him. He stands there a moment, almost waiting for something to throw itself out at him. A soft whimpering sound comes from inside the room. It sounds human, like a girl crying, lightly, to herself. Migel lowers his handgun, but holds it ready. He steps forth and turns around the doorway of the room.

Sitting in a corner, with her back turned, a girl has her face buried in her hands, crying. Her shoulders shaking with each gasp. Her long, light-brown hair, laid out on her red shirt, above a light pink skirt. Migel puts his gun away, sensing that no harm would ever come from someone like this. He steps in further.

"Excuse me, I ... " Migel starts, but stops when the girl quickly snaps around, with a terrified look on her face. Dried and moisturized tears remain on her face. Her eyes looking extremely tired and puffy. Her face red, as well as some white from fear. Beneath the tears, the girl seems of a relatively young age, possibly twenty years old, and quite pretty. Her red shirt is opened over a light pink shirt. She freezes there, staring at Migel. "No. Don't worry. I'm a normal person. I'm Migel. What's your name?"

The girl seems relieved to hear him speak. She doesn't even say anything, before running over to him and throwing her arms around his body, tears of joy dropping from her eyes. Migel stands there a moment, surprised at the girl's reaction. He places his hands on her waist and looks down at her. Her head lifts up, a smile creaking through the tears on her face.

"What's your name?" Migel asks again. The girl seems looks up at him with a peculiar look, almost as if she has never been asked for her name before. Finally her mouth opens.

"...Lilly..." Her soft voice manages out of her throat. Migel just looks at her and smiles, which then turns to curiosity.

"Are you alright? How long have you been here, Lilly?" He asks. Lilly seems like she is overwhelmed with the fact that someone has inquired to who she is, and how she is.

" ...Yes. I'm fine. I was just ... just, crying. I was afraid that I wouldn't get out of this place. I've been around here for I don't know how long, because I lost count of the days a little after a month. I can't really go anywhere, because there's _things_ out there. They're out there, trying to get me!" She stops, clutching Migel tighter, and seeming a little more anxious, "But ... but now that you're here ... now I can find a way out. Now there's a chance. Right?"

"Of course. I'll get us out of here. I've seen what's out there, and I've found ways of dealing with them. Don't worry about it." Migel gains a sarcastic kind of look, thinking about how he's completely lost, and has been since he woke up in the wasteland. Lilly looks up at him with such a huge smile that he can't help himself from gaining one. Migel realizes then, that this is about the first time he has smiled in what seems like must've been at least a few years.

"Do you know what's happened here, at all?" Migel asks the, seemingly, lost girl.

"I have no idea! I was just on a bus ride to go see some friends. The bus stopped here, and everybody got out, except for me. After about half an hour, everybody was gone. Like they all just vanished. When I went to look around, I found that the pedals for the bus had been removed. I went outside to look around more, and ... just ... ended up here I guess." She gained a worried look, then asked: "Do you know a way out of here? Those woods got me really lost, and I don't know where anything is anymore. It's almost as if they've changed on me or something. Like some dream or nightmare that just won't end." She buries her face into Migel's chest, tears beginning to roll down her face again.

"Hey, " Migel says, as he lifts her chin, "Don't worry 'bout it. I'll get us out of here. Those things out there haven't posed any significant threat, yet. So you shouldn't get worked up." He takes a small step back, and takes her hands from around him. "C'mon, let's go. I don't think it's gonna be doing us much good, if we stick 'round these parts."

Migel takes hold of Lilly's hand, and leads her outside, into the woods, with shadows residing everywhere. In one hand, Migel has Lilly's, in the other, the Desert Eagle. They glance around, spotting no threats, just before moving on to travel through the woods.


	7. As The Dark Sun Rises

**Chapter Seven: As The Dark Sun Rises **_Day one; midnight_

The smooth cloth around her legs remain untouched. Her light beige undershirt, stretches around her breasts, and up to her neck. Her throat gradually shifts, breath releasing itself from her, partly-open, mouth. Her head resting, lightly on her hands. Her short hair lays, perfectly, to the side of her face. Her eyes slowly open. She sits up, unsure of where she is. She looks over herself, discovering that there isn't a single scratch on her. There isn't even anything from the brick which she had been hit with previously, only her weapons have been removed. Corporal Lenart stretches out her arms, gracefully, followed by a yawn. Looking to her side, she notices a small book on the ground beside the bed. She bends over and picks up the book, bringing it closer, to take a look at.

A picture of an elaborate sword is depicted on the cover. At the bottom of the cover reads: _Sword of the Blind Eye_. Opening the book reveals hundreds of pages with a black ink poured over all of them, making them illegible. Corporal Lenart flips through quickly, and comes to a single page which seems to be the only one with visible writing on it. It reads:

"This great blade has the capability to turn anyone who wields it, into what would seem like an experienced warrior. With this sword, even children can fight like men with thousands of years of experience, with practise. This blade, however, also has a curse laid upon it. Anyone who carries the sword will become enswarmed with power, but after wielding the sword for more than one hour, their soul will become linked to the sword. This means that, if the sword is discarded, the wielder will die. The sword is an ancient rune weapon, and is known to capture souls of all those who come to death before it. This has resulted in the awesome power of this weapon. Because of it's extreme capability, however, it has been locked away from common folk to use. Now only a blessed child can wield the sword. Anyone else who touches the handle, has been known to fall into a coma."

Corporal Lenart, looks curiously at the passage in the book. She begins to wonder why the book would be left here. A sound suddenly cracks out from outside, and she drops the book. She stares forth, at the entrance to the tent which she sits inside of. She gets up and walks over to the flap of the tent.

Throwing the flap wide, Corporal Lenart comes out into the darkened lands. She finds herself to be in what seems like a vacant camp. Several tents laid out around all seem empty. She steps away from the tent, out into the open. In the centre of the camp is a strange fire. It's alike to any other campfire, but the flames emit in blue and green colours. Walking toward the fire, Corporal Lenart watches her surroundings, which still appear to be lifeless. She approaches the fire, and discovers it to not even emit heat. Suddenly, footsteps start coming towards her, and sound rather heavy.

She whips around, to find herself staring, wide-eyed, at a demon man standing there, with a hatchet in either hand. She is startled by the demon being there, so suddenly, but instinctively searches for any kind of weapon around her. The demon continues towards her, and she quickly reaches down, grabbing one of the rocks from around the fire and throws it at the demon, hitting it in the chest and knocking it down. She then turns and starts running, heading into the woods.

After running long enough to be completely out of sight from the camp, and satisfied that nothing was chasing her, Corporal Lenart stops. She looks around, completely lost, as to where she is. To the side, she finds that there's some kind of shelter. It seems to have been hand made using resources from the forest around it. Branches and leaves stick out from all over it. Corporal Lenart

starts walking to the strange shelter, when a gust of wind rustles the trees, and a low-toned groan seems to call out from toward the shelter. She takes another step, and the voices of children start coming through her head, laughing at her. A creepy kind of music starts ringing. Music like that of a carousel, or anywhere in a carnival for that matter. A voice of a girl starts laughing, louder than the others. Corporal Lenart clutches her head, and falls to her knees, whimpering. The sounds of drills, and chainsaws start tearing through the music and laughter, followed by babies crying. A man starts screaming, as if in agonizing pain and fear. All the sounds suddenly turn into a high-pitched scream, piercing Corporal Lenart's ear drums. She lets out an agonized shriek, curling up on the ground, afraid of what's going on. Everything suddenly stops. Corporal Lenart finds herself, on the ground, clutching her head, and bent down, with tears of fear dripping from her face. She slowly releases her head and sits up, still bewildered. The strange shelter is suddenly covered in a grotesque display.

Blood is sprayed across the branches. A head of a moose stands out from the top of the wall. Several limbs of assorted animals, including humans, stretch out from the mess. In the centre of the gore is a symbol, painted with a dark and murky purple colour. The symbol seems like a circle, with a triangle inside of it, and the outline of an eye in the triangle. tear-like shapes spread out from underneath the blind eye, creating a look of tears. At the top of the triangle is vein-like marks, reaching down to the eye.

Corporal Lenart stands there a moment, staring at the sickening vision. She finally breaks out of shock and starts walking around the disgusting figure. She comes to the other side of the wall, which shows that it is just a wall, with a pedestal on one side of it. She approaches the pedestal, laid out upon it, is candles and a goblet. Above the pedestal is two hands sticking out from the wall, which hold unlit torches. Just as she comes close, the candles instantly light themselves. The torches light up with bright flames. A strange blood-like liquid rises from within the goblet. Corporal Lenart loses control of herself, as she reaches out and takes hold of the goblet, and lifting it to her lips. The vile liquid pours down her throat, burning it on the way down. She then slams the goblet back down on the pedestal. The liquid inside instantly evaporates. Corporal Lenart drops down to her knees, before the pedestal, her hands clutching the edge of it, tightly. She lets out a struggled cough.

Electrical charges begin surging all over Corporal Lenart's body. The electricity begins spreading all over, striking the wall, and crawling up it. Corporal Lenart throws back her arms, faces up and lets out a piercing shriek. Lightning suddenly crashes through the air, striking the pedestal, blowing it out in evaporating pieces. Corporal Lenart falls to her knees, for a moment. She then stands up, turns from the wall, and starts walking off into the forest...


	8. Loss Of a Sanctuary

**Chapter Eight: Loss of a Sanctuary**_ Day one; 2:00 p.m._

Footsteps falls upon the cement, flowing down the road, towards the police station. Father Aryus stops to look at the station. A light mist surrounds the building. It's blue and white colours look dimmed and faded. A light rain begins to fall to the ground. Aryus looks up at the darkened clouds, for a moment. He watches as the clouds stir amongst themselves. He looks back to the police station.

The station's doors swing open slowly. Father Aryus comes walking through the doorway and closes the doors behind him. Dim lights illuminate the solid concrete walls. A reception desk in the front holds a computer and a telephone. Aryus walks over to the desk and reaches for the phone, but stops, thinking that it is somehow likely to not be working. A ring, suddenly, blares out from the telephone. Aryus takes hold of the receiver and lifts it to his ear. Before he even says anything, a voice comes through.

"Hello, Father." It's a mid-toned, sinister male voice, "I've been trying to get a hold of you, Father. You have taken quite some time to find, but now ... NOW I've found you!" The voice squeaks out a creepy giggle. The voice sighs, then continues, "I've been in need of a good laugh recently, Father. I'm so glad you could help me. I believe I've done something wrong, Father. Possibly something ... very wrong. I can't tell you what it is, but ... you, you can just stick with knowing ... knowing that it will find you." The voice giggles again, then breaks into hysterical laughter. "YOU don't GET IT, DO YOU?!?! I'm sure you will, FATHER! Don't be too SURPRISED!!!" The phone then goes dead. Aryus, remains standing there, holding the phone at his ear, staring at the wall, both confused, and scared. He shakily puts the receiver back on the phone.

"What're you doing here?" A strong, but calm voice calls to Aryus from behind him. Aryus turns around, finding a police officer standing there, holding a rifle at his side. He has blonde hair, which almost reaches his eyes, a bit chubby, but not obese. His face, an expression of intensity. His pale blue and gray eyes, remain slightly squinted towards Aryus. His light blue uniform and jeans seem rather old, but still decent. "I ask you what you're doing here? Ye' speak english?"

"Yes ... yes, I speak english. I'm just surprised to see people still here." Aryus replies, looking a bit confused at the police officer.

"Huh? What'you talkin' about?" The cop says, his look getting even more angry, by the look of it. Aryus widens his eyes and points to the door, taking a step forward.

"Have you not seen what's out there?! They're monsters!!! They even attacked me!" Aryus says in a worried tone. The officer just gives him a dumb look.

"Everything seems normal to me. I haven't heard any reports of any of these, so called _monsters_, that you speak of. You sure you're alright?" Aryus stares at him, with a gaping mouth and wide eyes. He grabs the sides of his head, and drops on his knees.

"I ... I heard the voice on the phone too. They couldn't have been imagination. Why don't you believe me?! They attacked me! It was awful!!" Aryus suddenly jerks up, as if an idea has struck his brain, "That woman!! I saw a woman. She had ... she had a trench coat, and a sword. She looked really strange. She explained all this stuff to me. You must be one of the other people that were chosen!!"

"Listen buddy, I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about, but I think you should stick around for a little bit, while we figure some things out." The officer says, reaching out and slapping cuffs on Aryus' wrists. Aryus holds up his hands in front of him, staring at the cuffs, with a bitter look of betrayal.

"NO!! You don't believe me?! I'm a priest, a Father, of the church! Why would I make this up?!" Aryus pleads to the ignorant cop who doesn't pay attention. He just pulls Aryus away through a

door, which goes out into a prison, and by no means of logic could've fit in the building, judging by it's size on the outside. Aryus just looks around at the cells, all of them empty, with an expression of complete confusion, drawn on his face. His mouth barely squeezes out the word "How ... "

The officer leads to an elevator which takes them up fifteen floors. They exit the elevator and come to a cell. The officer opens the large gate, and puts Aryus inside, removing the cuffs and locking him inside. The priest remains bewildered and in a complete state of shock. He looks around at the prison.

The prison is built in a circular fasion, being on the fifteenth floor, Aryus can't even see the ground floor from his cell. Above him is another few floors of cells, but he can't tell how many, because there's only two before the ascended floor from him cuts off his view.

The cell which Aryus resides in currently, has a low-quality folding bed, attached to the wall, a sink, and a toilet. He walks over and pulls down the bed, and takes a seat on the creaky, old, bed. He takes in a deep sigh, bringing his hands to his head. He lays back and stares at the cement ceiling above him...


	9. The Carnival

**Chapter Nine: The Carnival **_Day Two; 9:05 a.m._

Their feet pound on the ground, retracting and running through the forest. Migel and Lilly come running up to a large sign which passes over the path. Written out across it is the words: Moth Wood Amusement Park. On one of the legs to the sign is another board with prices. Both signs appear to have rust devouring them. Migel holds up the Desert Eagle and looks around cautiously. Lilly brings herself closer to Migel and puts her hands on either side of his waist.

Dark mist streams throughout the air. Decaying metal frames are thrown about in a tightly spaced manner. Near the entrance, a carousel and a swinging boat ride are placed. Nothing appears to be moving at all. The grass on the ground grows, reaching out from the edges of the ride walls. Corrosion has broken parts of rides off, dropping them to the ground.

Migel slowly steps through the small gap between the two former machines of entertainment. Lilly follows closely to Migel, shivering with fear, her eyes widened. finding nothing of danger, yet, Migel steps out further into the open. Migel suddenly drops the gun on the ground and grasps the sides of his head, falling to his knees. An excruciating pain surges into Migel's brain. His eyes tightly seal in agony. The image of a woman wearing a long dark dress flashes in front of him. Her hands resting on top of something which reaches the ground from just above her waist, where the top of it is. Her blonde hair just reaching her shoulders.

Migel finally opens his eyes to find him laying on the ground, with Lilly kneeled down to him, shaking him, her eyes looking glassy. A worried expression on her face emphasizes her pleads for Migel to say something. Migel thrusts his vocal cords and manages to speak.

"Sorry 'bout that." Lilly throws her arms quickly around Migel, pulling him in tight. Migel is a bit surprised and reassures her that he's alright. She releases him and he sits up.

"I would've been completely lost without you. Are you sure you're ok?" Lilly says, her worried look beginning to fade.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Migel shakes his head and stands up. He looks around and everything seems different. The space he had just come through was now gone. The rides looked different and mist had developed enough to conceal the ground. A hard thump hits the ground to Migel's side. Standing there, is a man wearing a wide brimmed, straw hat. Long, dark silver hair reaches down to his shoulders from underneath the hat. A torn up jacket is strewn about his torso, over what appears to have previously been a white shirt, but now is covered with dried blood. Long pins and needles protrude from multiple places all over his body, as well as stitching and nails. From under each foot is a wooden board, which appears to be holding him up, and originates from up his pant legs. The scarecrow-looking man slowly tilts his head up. A dark purple surrounds his wide eyes. Blood around his mouth wrinkles as a sinister smile creaks through it. His hands come from behind his back revealing a knife in one hand, and scissors in the other.

Migel puts his hand to his waist only to find the lack of his weapon. The scarecrow man steps forth, the foot dangling limply no the board. He squints his eyes in a psychotic glare. Lilly remains kneeling on the ground to Migel's side, frozen with fear. The scarecrow's head twitches and hangs to the side at a creepy angle, still staring intently at Migel. It holds up the scissors and snaps them rapidly. It then shifts it's legs out into a ready stance. Migel assumes a similar position. The scarecrow suddenly lunges out thrashing at him with the blades, laughing hysterically while doing so. Migel dodges the first few swings, but gets clipped on his ribs and gets a gash on his left arm. Migel grabs the demon by the throat, lifting it up and slams it against the wall behind him. He then lets go and backs away. The scarecrow stands up, slowly, and starts laughing again, when blood suddenly bursts out the back of it's head and it collapses to the ground. Migel looks down at Lilly on the ground, her eyes still wide with fear, and her hands trembling with the pistol in them. She looks up at him.

"Well that helped." Migel smirks at his remark. Lilly smiles a little, then stands up to hand the gun

to Migel. He nods to her and turns, heading further into the carnival. Lilly follows closely behind him. The two of them come to a path with rides and game stalls on either side of it. A carousel to one side suddenly starts operation and rotates, with the music ringing out. The sound seems warped to a creepy kind of tone. Watching the horses pass by, they each seem to turn their heads to stare at Migel. Lilly notices this and lets out a horrified shriek. A stall on the other side of the path lights up with an illumination of the title: "Shoot Your Kids". A line of rifles aim towards dummies of children. The children are in different poses, some crying, some laughing and some just standing there with a sad look on their face. Blood and bullet holes are scattered everywhere in the stall. Migel frowns and scrunches his eyebrows, then turns away from the stall. The sound of a crying baby starts in Migel's head. He turns to Lilly, but she appears to not be able to hear the noise. A small hand suddenly grabs Migel's waist. He jerks away and instantly points the gun out, but doesn't fire. He finds himself holding a pistol right up to a child's head. A young child, maybe two years old, just standing there. Migel gets angry at the sight and yells out in frustration. Lilly jumps back from Migel, scared of what's going on. She looks at the child with a look of surprise burned into her face. She reaches out and starts towards the young boy, but Migel thrusts his arm in front of her. She looks at him, in his face, a look of bitter hatred, and possibly psychotic. He turns back to the boy. Lilly screams at Migel as he pulls the trigger. She clutches onto Migel's arm, her expression changed to horror.

Migel puts his arm back at his side and turns to Lilly. Lilly releases his arm and backs away from him, coming to a wall. Migel looks at her, confused. Lilly starts shaking her head. She tries to say something, but her throat holds the words from reaching out. She looks to her side, where a door is. She grabs the handle, throwing the door open and runs inside.

"Lilly, NO!!" Migel calls out as he gives chase through the door. Inside is too dark to see. The door slams behind Migel, and all other noises cease existence. Migel calls out "Lilly!! It might be dangerous in here!! C'mon head back here, there's the exit sign that you can see." Migel turns and looks up at the red exit sign. The light inside the sign suddenly flash and burn out. Migel just looks at the sign, a bit surprised. He turns back and calls out again "Ok, just say something. I'll come find you and try to get us out of here." He hears no response. Migel curses to himself and walks forward into the darkness.

A feeling of loss and emptiness fills Migel's head as he continues to search for Lilly. He finds himself moving along a wall, when he hears a sudden shriek. "Lilly!!" Migel hollers into the darkness. The sound of whimpering continues a little bit ahead of Migel. He breaks into a run, and slams right into a body, which falls over. Migel gains his balance and puts his foot on the body, aiming the gun forth. He remains holding the figure on the floor, unable to see it. "Lilly?" He checks, but the response comes from his side.

"I'm over here.." A quiet little peep from Lilly responds to Migel.

A low-toned cackling cries out from under Migel's foot. A scratching sound ignites as a match strikes the cement floor, illuminating the person on the floor. Laying there, is a black man. He's bald and wears a faded jean jacket over a white shirt. Migel glares, furiously, at the man on the floor. The man continues laughing, quietly, as he brings the match to his body. Migel jumps away from the man, as his body is enveloped in flames. Migel stands there staring at the burning corpse on the ground for a moment, before turning to Lilly.

"Are you alright?" Migel asks Lilly, in a rather serious tone. Lilly looks at him with a shocked expression on her face. Tears of fear dry on her face. Migel approaches Lilly, who is sitting against a wall.

"I think I'm alright. A little confused though." She looks back at the charred remains of the body on the floor for a second and turn back to Migel.

"I think this place is really screwin' with our heads. Let's get out of here." Migel offers his hand to Lilly, who accepts it.

"Why ... why did you kill that boy outside?" She questions him.

"Because that wasn't just some boy. That was some kind of demon. Trust me, with all the things I've seen around here, there's no way that anything, even like that could be real." Migel explains.

"But he ... " Migel interrupts Lilly.

"Just believe me. That was no boy. Just like that wasn't really a man there. This can't be real. You can't tell me that someone like that guy out there who attacked me was real. It's just not possible." Lilly just looks confused and sort of scared. "Alright, now let's try to find our way out of here." Lilly nods.


	10. The Family

**Chapter Ten: The Family **_Day Two; 6:35 a.m._

Through the trees and forth into the forest, Corporal Lenart walks. The trees all have a dark and gloomy look to them with bony arms reaching out. The light is intercepted by the hordes of branches and leaves. A short distance away, Corporal Lenart can see a small building.

Coming up to the small building, she discovers it to be an old, abandoned cabin. Moss and vines crawl all over the dark and moist wooden logs which form walls. Approaching the entrance, the door is open, with what seems like wet footprints leading inside. Inside the house is too dark for her to see from the outside. She steps up on the creaky deck, heading towards the entrance. As she steps through the doorway, a flash of light suddenly overcomes her vision.

A hysterical laughing calls out through the blinding light, but ceases when vision returns. Corporal Lenart finds herself to be chained, shackled to a chair. Her clothes are different, she's wearing a light blue shirt and identically coloured pants, and her shoes and socks have been removed. She finds herself sitting at a table. At the other side is a man in a business suit, sitting there, with an expression of anger upon him. He's a bald man, with a wide-brimmed hat on his head. A thick gray beard spreads out over his chin and into his moustache. Laying on the table in front of him are some papers, documents of some kind.

Corporal Lenart looks to her side and finds another man sitting by her. She has difficulty focusing her eyes to see him clearly, but she can tell that he's wearing a dark suit and has a briefcase with him. She feels groggy, light-headed, and dizzy, having to strain just to keep her head in one spot. Her eyes are rather heavy, and want to close, but she finds that she must keep them open. The man beside her stands up from his chair and opens his briefcase on the table. Inside the briefcase are some papers, a pistol, and what appears to be a knife, covered in blood. The man takes out some papers and hands them to the man across the table. Suddenly a red liquid starts pouring out from the edges of the ceiling. Corporal Lenart goes to stand up, but is pulled back by the shackles. The man, seemingly some kind of lawyer, sits back down while the bald, bearded man reads the papers.

Corporal Lenart tries to ask what's going on with the ceiling, but when she opens her mouth, she can't find her words well enough to say them, and drool falls out the corner of her mouth, landing on her shoulder. She looks over at the lawyer beside her. He looks somewhat displeased, but calm. He suddenly stands up and reaches into the briefcase, pulling out the knife. The other man is signing and reading the documents, when the blade slams into his hand. He starts screaming out in agony, but a gun shot ends it. The lawyer walks over to the other side of the table and slides the papers over to Corporal Lenart, who is completely shocked and a bit frightened. She looks down at the papers before, but can't read them, her vision is too cloudy. All she makes out is that large, stamped, word in the middle which reads: **RELEASE,** in red ink.

She looks back up at the lawyer, who is now aiming the gun at her. She widens her eyes, and a crack of lightning rings out, another flash of light invades her sight.

She wakes up to find herself laying on the floor inside of the cabin. It looks like it used to be a living room. Around her there are chairs, a couch, and some other pieces of furniture. She no longer feels drugged, but confused. She sits up and looks at her wrists where there had been chains of some sort. Now strange wristbands had appeared on her wrists. She takes hold of one's edge and goes to pull it off, but when she lifts it from her arm, it feel like it's tearing the skin with it. She lets go and leaves it there.

Corporal Lenart stands up and brushes herself off. Looking around more, there's a kitchen and a doorway around the room. The windows all have the curtains pulled to the sides, letting in what little amount of sunlight manages through the trees. She turns and walks into the kitchen, finding it to be completely normal. Coming into the dining room, Corporal Lenart finds that the table is completely set. There's plates, silverware, and glasses set out, but no food. Suddenly a sound of someone's footsteps starts on the second floor, each step making it's own creaking sound. The

steps quicken their pace, and head to the stairs. Hearing someone coming down the stairs, Corporal Lenart panics and hides around a corner, with her face barely around the edge, watching if someone comes down. The pace slows down, and a foot comes into vision through the railing.

Quickly, Corporal Lenart turns and keeps herself out of view from the stairs around the corner. She stands there, listening for any sounds, but there are none. Hearing nothing, she decides to turn around the corner to check again. Corporal Lenart shrieks with terror, when she finds a girl standing right there, facing her when she turns. She is scared so badly that she jumps back, hitting the wall behind her, and almost loses her balance, but manages to stay up.

The girl has long dark hair, and a face with little expression other than anger. Her eyes, and mouth are sewn up, with loose stitches showing signs that her eyes have been sewn before and torn out. As Corporal Lenart stumbles a way, the girl stands there, watching her through the sealed eye lids. Suddenly, an extremely high pitched scream cries out in Corporal Lenart's head. The scream is so loud and sudden, that she jumps again, losing her balance, and toppling over onto a chair. She's about to get up, when she notices a basket beside the chair, with knitting needles and wool in it. The knitting needles look different though. They look like they're made of old steel or iron, and have a sharp point on one end, a loop in the other.

Desperately, Corporal Lenart grabs one of the needles and gets up off the chair. She stands there, terrified of the girl standing there in the doorway, watching her. She wields the needle, ready to attack with it if the girl comes near her. Suddenly another person comes into the living room. It's a very tall man, wearing a long-sleeved plaid shirt, which has several tears and holes in it, as well as patched jeans. His head bent over to the side, with his neck sticking out awkwardly. Like the girl, his eyes and mouth have been sewn shut. The man and girl just remain standing there, staring at Corporal Lenart.

In a thought of escaping through the window behind her, Corporal Lenart turns around, but boards have appeared over the window, completely sealing it. Now even more afraid, Corporal Lenart turns around to face the two people there. Now there's another one, a woman, with her belly bulged out from what seems like pregnancy. Her eyes and mouth are sewn like the others. In her hands, she has wool and knitting needles, as she's making some kind of shirt. She remains sitting in the chair, just knitting, but facing Corporal Lenart while doing so.

Yet another person comes into the room. Another man, but not as tall or old as the other man. His face is sewn, and a screwdriver is plunged into his shoulder. There are also bullet holes in his chest, and several cuts all over. They look like a family, all of them standing around, with their covered eyes just staring at Corporal Lenart. Her hands tremble violently and her lip starts quivering.

"Wh ... what do you ... want?" She manages to ask, but none of them do anything. Backed up into the corner, she finds herself trapped there. Suddenly the girl walks quickly towards her. Corporal Lenart slams against the wall behind her in pure terror, tears building up in her eyes. In a panicked attack, Corporal Lenart thrusts the needle into the girl's chest. The girl stops and backs up a step from Corporal Lenart, and turns to the needle sticking out of her chest. She turns back to Corporal Lenart and swiftly grabs the needle, pulling it out of her. Corporal Lenart trembles and fears for her life so severely that, finally, she loses consciousness, collapsing on the floor. The last thing she sees is the tall man leaning over to her and reaching out.

A dream comes to her, but it seems different from most other dreams. She finds herself standing outside of a farm house, which seems similar to the cabin she was just in. She's standing by a shed, where some noises are coming from within. Entering the shed, there's someone there, rummaging through drawers and cupboards, seeming to be looking for something. He's a tanned man, in his teens. He has short black hair and the start of a goatee. Finally he stops raiding the place, and looks at some keys in his hands. He then walks over to a locker and opens it with the keys, and tosses them to the side. Inside the locker is a collection of guns. A few rifles, shotguns, and ammunition. He reaches into the bottom and picks up a revolver, a large magnum. He loads it and puts it in his pocket. He turns and starts heading out of the shed, and doesn't seem to even notice Corporal Lenart standing there.

When Corporal Lenart turns, she find herself to suddenly be inside the house, on the ground floor, in the living room, where the woman and tall man that she had seen earlier sit, watching television, the woman, knitting. The teen-aged boy comes in, holding a bat. He comes up behind the chair that the tall man sits in. The boy calls out, "Dad?" and the tall man tilts his head upward, just to see the bat crash down on his neck, breaking it and killing him. The woman drops the knitting needles and is about to stand up, when the boy shoots her in the side. She falls back into the chair, bleeding immensely from the large hole in her ribs, near her heart. Corporal Lenart just stands there, watching this boy murder what seems like his parents. Another teen-aged boy comes running down the stairs, who seems to be older than the murderer. The two boys face each other for a moment, before the one yells at him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" The murderer is about to shoot him, but the older boy tackles him to the floor, setting off the gun, and spraying blood from the older boy's leg. The older boy holds him there, and sits up to slug him in the face. The murderer, pinned to the ground, reaches around desperately, and finds an open toolbox sitting against the wall. He reaches inside and pulls out a screwdriver, slamming it into the older boy's shoulder, and throws him off. The stabbed boy lays on the floor, bleeding, when the murderer shoots him near the centre of his chest. He lays there, twitching and bleeding to death, when he is shot again in the chest, finalizing his death.

Standing in the doorway, just watching is the girl with dark hair. She appears to be in shock from what she had just seen. She looks up at the murderous boy there, aiming the revolver at her. She just stares at him, a tear falls, splashing to the ground, when the magnum fires again, plummeting the girl to the floor, with a hole bore in her throat. The murderer looks around a bit and grabs the bat, then walks to and up the stairs. Corporal Lenart quickly follows him to a bedroom, with the door closed. The boy violently struggles with the door, cursing. He yells out for the door to be opened, but nobody responds. He puts the gun back in his pocket and takes hold of the bat with both hands, to slam the door knob, breaking it off. He slams his body into the door, smashing it open to reveal an empty bedroom, with a window, wide open. The boy runs over to the window and spots a girl in the distance, running away. He yells out at her, and starts shooting, but can't aim anywhere near her.

The boy turns around to where Corporal Lenart stands, and just stops. He remains there, staring forward a moment, then looks up at Corporal Lenart's face.

Corporal Lenart suddenly comes to consciousness. She's still in the living room, but the people who were there have disappeared. She stands up and notices the needle, she had used to stab the girl with, sticking out of the floor. The window by her is no longer boarded, everything has returned to normal. Confused and scared, Corporal Lenart runs out of the cabin, not caring where she's going, just as long as she can get away from that place.


	11. The Bellman

**Chapter Eleven: The Bellman **_Day one; 8:45 p.m._

The air remains stale and cold within the cement walls. Aryus lays there on his bed, asleep. He wakes up to find himself still staring at the ceiling. A noise then comes from the bars, of someone tapping them. When he looks over at them, he sees a hand reaching from the cell next to him, holding a notepad, and tapping on a bar with it. Aryus stands up, wondering when the person was brought to the cell, because it had been empty before. Upon standing up, the hand drops the notepad and retracts to the other cell. Aryus goes over to the corner and picks up the notepad.

Written on the cover of the notepad is "A way out". In it's pages, it reads an explanation of a kind of ritual that will get him out of the cell. Aryus is hesitant, but decides to try it.

Aryus takes off his shirt and soaks it in the sink, getting a corner of it drenched in water. He then takes it out and draws a circle on the floor, followed by a triangle. He sits in the middle holding the wet shirt, and draws an oval in the centre of the triangle. Immediately after drawing the oval, the room begins to shake. The symbol on the floor though, is somehow different, it remains still, but even the floor underneath it vibrates and warps. Aryus looks around in complete confusion. Everything around just keeps shaking back and forth, except for the symbol. Suddenly the lights go out and everything stops. Aryus stands up in the darkness and steps forward, not sure of what's going on. He walks in the direction of where the bars had been, but can't find them, he just keeps walking into darkness, like everything has vanished. He then stops, and shakes his wet shirt, before putting it back on. The lights flicker a bit and for the second that they were on, Aryus thought he found himself to be in the center of the prison, but the center of the prison didn't have flooring, which causes him to panic and run to the side. The lights come back on, and Aryus continues running, on air, but it stops a moment after, and drops him just out of reach of the railing.

He falls towards the floor, fifteen stories up. he lets out a scream as he plummets towards the ground, when the lights go out again. Aryus stands up, on what he's pretty sure is just air. Before he can even go anywhere, the lights come back on, and Aryus finds himself in the interrogation room. The cop is there with him, and sternly tells him to sit down. Completely lost, Aryus sits back down in a seat there.

"Now ... I have to go, but you can be sure that I'll be back." The officer tells Aryus, just before walking out, leaving him there alone. He sits there, looking around, not sure of what to do. He gets up and walks over to the door, and is about to open it, but isn't sure what he will find behind it. Without any more thoughts, Aryus grabs the handle and slowly opens the door. He finds himself to be right by the offices and cubicles. The place looks really dark and there's a strange blood-like substance spread all over everything there. It looks almost like rust, but is on everything. He steps out and finds no sign of anybody around. Even his shirt has dried somehow, though it was soaked a minute ago.

Coming out into the lobby, there still seems to be no one anywhere. "What about that guy in the cell?" He thinks to himself, heading to the doors to the prison. When he comes up to the large, automatic doors, they open wide, welcoming Aryus inside, but the prison seems very dark, and hard to see in. Aryus steps inside and the doors close behind him. He stands there a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the lack of light when the lights suddenly come on.

The entire prison seems to have gained a certain distasteful decorative manner to it. The blood-like rust is everywhere, as well as plain dried blood. The cells are now all filled with demonic people, of all ages. All the people have several pins, needles, and nails throughout their bodies. Another common trait amongst all of the people is that all of their eyes and mouths are sewn up. They all stand there in their cells, staring at Aryus.

"Good ... god ... " Aryus quietly exclaims with an expression of terrible shock. He looks around at the countless cells, all of them filled with these demonic kinds of people.

As his vision comes to the ground floor once again, he sees a man standing there in the very center of the prison.

It's a man wearing only a cloth, some boots, and gauntlets on his hands. Two of the common needles stick out of his bald head, where an eye with no pupil stares at him, the other concealed in darkness. A psychotic smile planted on his face gives him a creepy kind of edge. His large muscles seem to barely even strain to the large weight he carries. In his hands is a chain, attached to a gigantic bell. He stands there, staring at Aryus with a motionless body. Aryus remains there, frozen stiff. He back up to the doors behind him, but they don't open.

Upon detecting movement, the bellman starts walking towards Aryus, and starts spinning the bell in his hands. Aryus can't even think of any alternative, his focus is so strongly on the bellman coming toward him. He suddenly breaks into a desperate run towards the stairs up the prison. The bellman just stops a moment, watching him run.

Aryus comes to the steps and climbs them as quickly as possible, and just keeps running, thinking that the bellman can't attack him up there. Arms start reaching out through the bars, trying to grab Aryus, but the platform is wide enough for him to evade them. The bellman just stands there watching as Aryus tries to flee. Suddenly, he runs over to the wall, and jumps right up onto the platform from the ground. Aryus stops, dead in his tracks, when the man leaps up.

The bellman turns and gives a hefty swing into the platform, smashing a huge hole through it. He swings a few more times, before satisfied that there's no way it can be passed. He turns back to Aryus and starts walking again. Aryus starts backing up at the bellman's pace, in fear, for he has no weapon or any way of defending himself. Suddenly a vision flashes in front of Aryus of a "prisoner" throwing a knife at him. He instinctively ducks, as the knife flies by, over, him and onto the ground. Aryus immediately leaps over the rail, taking a harsh landing on the cement floor, but he manages up alright and runs to the knife, grabbing it and holding it up, though he knows that it will not be enough.

The bellman starts laughing loudly, echoing throughout the prison. He jumps over the rail, landing easily and continues laughing, while he paces gradually after Aryus. Aryus stands there, realizing that there is nowhere for him to run. The bellman comes up to two metres away from Aryus, when he stops and glares at him. Aryus gets another flash of the bellman swinging, and he jumps to the side, barely dodging the attack. The bellman gets furious and stops swinging wildly at him, missing every time, due to Aryus' premonitions. Eventually, Aryus jumps back a decent distance, and throws the knife at the bellman, striking him in the leg. The bellman just looks down at the blade sticking out of his thigh and looks back at Aryus, now even more angry. Aryus, takes the advantage of his distraction however and runs away, heading for the doors again.

The bellman quickly chases behind him, barely limping at all. Aryus comes up near the doors, and notices another door. He slams into the other door, forcing it open and continues through the building, heading outside. As he reaches the lobby, he looks back, finding that the bellman hasn't followed him. A sudden metallic thud rings out from the main doors, followed by a few other ones, before the bell smashes through the big automatic doors. The bellman looks through the small opening he made at Aryus, to see him charging out the door, and takes a few more swings to break a hole big enough to exit with. Aryus comes running out into the streets, which are now dark from night, but without looking around, he frantically heads down the street, heading towards what seems like a large building on the lake side, not looking back to see if the bellman is following him.


	12. A Deeper Discovery

**Chapter Twelve: A Deeper Discovery **_Day two; 10:55 a.m._

The door to the large building-like ride opens. Migel and Lilly slip out and come back into the main stretch of the carnival. However, they find themselves to be in what seems like a different part of the stretch. The stalls and rides around are different ones. Across from them is a stall titled "Drown Your Dad" Migel has to look at this stall a moment, because it's definitely not a normal game. The stall is just empty, except for a trough in the middle, with a limp body hanging out of it.

"What kind of game is that? ... Whatever ... " Migel shakes his head and looks around some more, to find it to be clear of any threats. Migel walks out into the middle of the stretch and starts walking along it, with Lilly holding close to him. When they come to a ferris wheel, it suddenly starts moving. In the seats of the ride are bodies laid out. Blood is spattered all over the seats. Suddenly a strange and creepy laughing comes out from behind him. Looking back he finds the scarecrow standing there, wielding his two weapons at his sides, staggering to stay upright, and still walking towards him, with the ever-present smile and glare. Migel moves Lilly to the side as he steps forward and calls out, "Alright asshole, you wanna die again? You forget that I have range, and you don't, moron!" Just as Migel casts the final insult, he raises the pistol and shoots the scarecrow in the chest. The scarecrow takes it and remains standing, and laughing with a rough, coarse voice. Migel shoots again, and the scarecrow falls over dead, again.

He turns back to Lilly, who is completely confused. Migel just shakes his head, "Nevermind..." and is about to continue walking when he sees the boy again, the same one as before. A young boy, maybe six years old. He's sitting on top of the "Gravitron" ride, which is a large saucer or ufo shape. Migel gets a bit angrier. "These fuckin' things won't stay dead!" He walks towards the boy, but as he gets closer, it seems to change. Cuts, gashes, and pins appear throughout his body as he steps nearer. Even his skin colour goes to a pale, dead, gray. His face hangs low, eyes shut. Migel points the pistol at the boy, and fires. Right when he fires the pistol, he drops down to the ground, blood bursting out from his thigh, while he curses loudly. The desert eagle falls on the ground beside him. The boy on the ride, falls off with a new hole punched in his head. A demon man comes closer, cocking a shotgun in his hands, shooting out the empty shell of a twelve gauge slug.

On his head is a baseball cap, with wood splinters sticking in it. Both ears have several piercings struck through them. His eyes glow with a mysterious red. Nails and pins stick out from all over his body. Hundreds of nails are punched into his legs, especially. Lined across his chest is shells in little pockets.

Lilly stands there, frozen at the sight of her only protection being injured. The hunter starts walking closer to Migel, laying there on the ground. As he comes within ten feet, he lifts the shotgun, but Migel whips around, wielding the desert eagle, and shoots the assailant in the chest, several times. The hunter lets out a gurgling howl and drops to the ground.

Migel, lays down on his back, and Lilly throws herself to his side. The wound in his leg bleeds, but doesn't appear to be too severe. Lilly starts rambling at a fast pace.

"Look you're gonna be fine. The bleeding isn't too bad, and I don't think it hit an artery or anything. And I'm just glad, 'cause I can't do this on my own. I mean, I-I-I-I could've never made it here... "

"Lilly..."

"...with those damn things everywhere, I mean I would've probably just gave up or something..."

"Lilly!" Migel says in a more stern voice to cease her hysterical rambling, "Shut up." Lilly laughs and smiles, glad that he's alright. "Could you maybe help me with patching this up?" Lilly nods quickly and looks around for anything to use. Migel tears a piece of cloth from his shirt and hands it to her, to wrap around his leg, tying a knot in it, to keep it in place.

"Is it alright now?" Lilly says, as she turns back to Migel's face, laying there on the ground.

"Yeah, I think it's fine." Migel tells her, even though he doubts be able to walk on it still.

"Oh, thank god you're alright!" Lilly exclaims as she throws her arms around him, a few tears reaching out of her eyes. Migel just sits there a moment, a bit surprised, then puts his hand on her back. When she pulls away, he moves his hand down to her waist, then just sets it back on the ground. He lays there a moment, just looking at Lilly, while she stares back. They just sit there looking at each other for a couple seconds, before Lilly starts to lean forward. A hysterical and annoying laugh calls out again, causing Lilly to jerk up. Migel takes on a look of complete hatred and anger. He sits up and grabs the Desert Eagle, shooting the scarecrow again in the head, and keeps pulling the trigger, but the clip is empty.

"Help me up." Migel requests Lilly's assistance to stand him upright. She gets up and takes his hand, trying to lift him up, but she's barely strong enough to help him at all. Migel manages up and just keeps his weight off his injured leg. "We gotta find something I can lean on." Lilly offers her shoulder, but even she knows that she isn't strong enough to hold him.

They both look around quickly, looking for anything they could use. Lilly spots a board that he might be able to use and runs to get it. Migel places the board under his arm to support himself.

"Grab that shotgun, and any of the shells there that we can carry." Lilly goes over to hunter-looking carni on the ground, hesitant to touch him. Migel walks up and helps her by placing the 'crutch' on the hunter's throat, leaning on it, causing plenty of cracking and other grotesque sounds to come from it. Lilly is discouraged from touching the body more, but she forces herself to take the shotgun from his hands and salvage as many shells that she can fit in her pockets. "You better hang on to that. Too much weight for me right now."

Lilly looks down at the gun in her hands, "I can't use this, I don't even know how."

"Well that didn't stop you from shooting before."

"But that was different, he could've killed you if I didn't do anything." Migel just shakes his head and comes up with a solution.

"Ok then, just hold it, and hand it to me whenever I need to shoot something." Lilly nods. Migel turns and looks at the boy on the ground, who seems to still be dead. The two of them walk on down the stretch, still lost and trapped inside of this pit of insanity.


	13. Strange Encounters

**Chapter Thirteen: Strange Encounters **_Day two 10:05 a.m._

Through the trees and bushes, Corporal Lenart continues walking. Coming up to a large iron gate, which is wide open. The gate is attached to a cement block wall, which goes out of view, due to the forest. Moss has found a home all over the walls and up to the gate. The large iron bars on the gate appear rusted and deteriorating, but still in decent shape. Through the large gateway is the burial grounds for hundred of people. All the graves have their own moss, rust, cracks, and chips in them. Corporal Lenart steps inside the cemetary through the large gateway. As soon as she enters the cemetary, people appear everywhere. Hundreds of people, that just appear out of thin air and sit in front of their tombstones. Like the cemetary is showing her what the people looked like, and who they were. All the people sit there at their graves, all of them with their eyes and mouth sewn up, along with pins, needles, and nails, sticking out of their bodies.

Corporal Lenart stops a moment to look over at all the people that have just come to reality again. They all just sit there, looking at her, like they're waiting for her to do something. She starts walking through the rows, looking at the people sitting there, watching her. Suddenly one of them stands up. It's a young woman wearing a trench coat over a black shirt and jeans. She also has long blonde hair, which is sprawled over her shoulders. Corporal Lenart stops, looking at the girl standing before her. The woman then raises her arm and points. Corporal Lenart looks and sees that she is pointing at a mausoleum. The woman sits back down at her grave and continues watching her through her sealed eyes.

Corporal Lenart comes up to the mausoleum. It stands tall with stained glass windows, the colour fading away on them. The large wooden doors have several holes, slashes and marks all over them. She approaches the doors and pushes them open.

Inside the mausoleum, is just an empty hallway up to a pedestal, where two people stand, with their backs turned from the doors. They wear long, dark robes, and have helmets on their heads, with spikes coming out of them. They both look exactly the same, and face down, completely motionless. Corporal Lenart walks inside, up to the pedestal, while watching the two robed people standing there.

When she comes around them, to the pedestal, she discovers that both of the figures there have their hands placed on the pommel of monstrous-sized swords. The swords each have their own markings on them, but appear to be in the same unknown language. Their faces appear to be that of skeletons. Corporal Lenart steps up to the other side of the pedestal, laid out on it is a book. She looks over the book, but the language in it, isn't english. Suddenly her vision darkens and she passes out, another strange vision coming to her.

Inside of a large church, the old organ plays a strange melody, while a priest at the front holds up a child, seemingly six years old or so. He calls out in an unknown language. Looking over at the organ, there's no one there playing it, but it continue to make sound. The priest at the front puts the confused child down on a bowl-shaped pedestal, as if to baptise the boy. In the bowl is a dark liquid, not of any particular colour, but seems dark.

Eight candles surrounding the pedestal suddenly light themselves in a synchronized manner. The boy remains sitting there in the pedestal, just watching the priest, who continues a strange chant. Finally, the priest stops chanting and turns to another pedestal, with a candle on it. He picks up the candle and cups his hand over the top, causing the candle to light, somehow. He turns back to the boy, and walks up to him. The boy sits there, unsure of what's going on. The priest lowers the candle to the liquid in the bowl, which flares up instantly, signifying that it must be gasoline, or another flammable liquid.

The boy cries out in pain as he is burned alive. The priest suddenly has a strange looking dagger in place of the candle and he thrusts it into the child's chest, piercing right through his body. He backs away from the flaming bowl and kneels down, saying some kind of prayer.

Corporal Lenart's vision returns to her. She finds herself laying on the floor in the mausoleum. The two robed skeletons kneel on either side of her, both in the exact same position as one another. A voice speaks to her in her head.

"He made this cemetery. He must be punished for his sins." Corporal Lenart remains laying there, confused.

"Who are you?" She manages to say without too shaky of a voice. The voice returns to her head.

"You do not need assistance now. When you require it, we shall return." Right when the voice stops, the two skeletons disappear.

Corporal Lenart sits up, a little surprised, and confused. She sits there, thinking about what the voice could have meant, or why it told her what it had. She shakes her head and stands up. The doors back out to the cemetary are closed. Corporal Lenart walks over to them, and pulls them open. When the doors are wide open, she becomes completely confused.

Outside has completely changed. Corporal Lenart finds herself to longer be in a cemetary. She's unsure of where she is, but by the looks of it, she's in a sewer system of some kind. A green slime has developed all over the walls, and ceiling. The tunnel is made of two walkways on either side of the tunnel, with water in the center. The water looks utterly dirty. It has a brown and green colour to it. The depth of the water is impossible to tell, due to the liquid just reaching down into an eternal abyss. The tunnel darkens away from where Corporal Lenart stands. Looking to her side, she grabs a torch and starts walking along the pathway on the right side of the tunnel.

The water appears unsettled, and bubbles in multiple areas, causing Corporal Lenart to get paranoid of something jumping out at her. Coming up to a corner, she finds that a metal shutter has been placed there, across the walkways. Looking at the water, she decides that she definitely isn't willing to go under the shutter unless she absolutely needs to. The other walkway doesn't seem too far, so she gets ready to jumps across the gap, using a bit of a run. Taking a run, Corporal Lenart goes to leap across the gap, but slips on the green slime when she gets near the edge of the walkway. The water erupts as she plunges into it.

The water feels extremely dirty, and there's hundreds of things floating around in it. Things that are squishy and gross feeling. She starts to panic and splashes everywhere as she tries to reach the walkway. She lets out a struggled scream as something stabs into her leg. It feels round, but has plenty of sharp things sticking out into her shin. She grabs hold of the walkway, and starts pulling herself out, but whatever it is that's holding her, prevents her from getting up. She screams again as the sharp claws dig into her leg. Suddenly the thing on her leg starts shaking, violently. The water around her bubbles and a flash of light comes from under her. The clawed thing detaches from her leg she pulls herself out of the water. Following her, a tentacle with some kind of mouth on it's end floats up, looking limp and lifeless. Corporal Lenart checks her leg where it bit her, and about a dozen holes are punctured into the muscle of her shin. Watery blood is all over her leg, and the wound continues to bleed. She pulls herself up, still able to walk, but with a bad limp. She shakes off some of the water, and picks off tons of green slimy things from all over her body, not knowing what it is, but knowing that it all looks disgusting.

Coming to a door, Corporal Lenart shoves it open. Inside is tons of machinery with some computers, levers, and whatnot scattered about the room. The machines appear to not be working, but look like they could be. She starts limping around the machinery in the centre of the large room and comes to a door, which has bloody footprints leading to and through it, though it's like there was only one foot, because there's only one set of prints. Opening it, she comes to another tunnel, with the pair of walkways around water.

With little other choice, she walks out and down the tunnel, coming to another intersection, but this time there's a makeshift bridge across the water. It's just a metal grating, but better than trying to jump. Further down the tunnel, the two walkways come into one larger one around a few doors,

two on one side, one on the other, and a large gate further down the tunnel. She looks down at

the bloody footsteps which lead through one of the doors, with a label on it reading "Staff Room." Beside it is another door, labelled "Storeroom" She decides that the storeroom might have a weapon in it that she can use to defend herself, if needed.

Coming into the storeroom, there is absolutely no light. She puts her hand on the wall beside the door, searching for a light switch. As she searches, she can feel insects scurrying around on the wall away and over her hand. Finally she locates the switch and flips it up, bringing light into the storeroom.

The light bulbs hanging from the ceiling illuminate rows of shelves, and some lockers. Piled all over the shelves are a bunch of nets, and other random equipment. Looking around for a decent weapon, Corporal Lenart only finds a few things that might do any damage. Then she finds a crowbar and is about to leave with it, but decides to check inside the lockers first. Grabbing the first locker reveals it's resistance to open. Rust has collected around the hinges and holds it in place. Jamming the crowbar into the edge of the locker, she starts heaving on it, eventually prying it open.

Inside the locker is a collection of clothes. Corporal Lenart is about to just turn away from the locker, when she finds a peculiar, black, box on the bottom. She takes it out and looks inside, finding a revolver. It's an old Colt .45, six-shooter, revolver. Also in the box is packages of bullets. Checking the chamber, she finds that the gun is loaded, and seems to be in great condition. She takes a few packages of bullets and places them in her pockets.

Satisfied with having the revolver and crowbar, Corporal Lenart comes out of the storeroom, and goes to the door with the bloody footsteps leading to it. She puts the crowbar down and leans it on the wall to keep it up. Fearing the worst, Corporal Lenart stands there, leaning on the door, with her hand on the knob, ready to throw it open. She turns the handle and shoves through the door, holding out the revolver. Corporal Lenart is shocked at the sight she now faces.

The room appears completely normal. It's a room with a large table in the center, chairs all around, and some basic kitchen necessities. The footsteps end at the doorway, like the creator of them just vanished. She steps inside, looking around. Everything in the room has a light coat of dust on it, but it all looks fine otherwise. Walking over to the sink, she turns the tap, and to her surprise water comes out fine. It looks clean and healthy, but she still doesn't trust it. Turning off the water, she turns around and looks over the rom again, completely surprised as to how the room could be in this kind of order, when everything else she had seen was completely different.

Suddenly, the sink starts making a bunch of strange noises. Corporal Lenart walks over to look at it, and maybe find out why it's being weird. The noises continue getting louder. She reaches over and turns the knob for water to pour out. When she turns that tap, blood comes pouring out of the drain. It's like it's bending reality, coming out the drain and flowing into the spout. Cracks start appearing on the spout, like it's breaking up, but the cracks look strange. They flow out onto the counter, cracking all over and making weird stretching noises. It almost looks like wrinkles, growing over the room from the sink. The 'wrinkles' reach and start crawling over the walls and floor.

Corporal Lenart whips around. The room has become completely infested with the eerie 'wrinkles' and moths have appeared everywhere. They're all on counters, walls, and anything else, all of them crawling over and around each other, but none of them are flying. Something scratches at the back of Corporal Lenart's throat. She starts coughing, bending over in case she's about to throw up. Finally, a moth comes fluttering out of her moth, and the scratching stops. She can still feel it though, as if it has left scars in her. She can feel the tiny legs reaching up past her uvula. The wings dragging on the back of her throat as it climbs into her mouth, and finally exits.

She takes a step and hears loud crunching under her foot. Looking down, she realizes that the

floor has become completely covered with cockroaches, centipedes, spiders, caterpillars, and other bugs of the sort. She jumps, freaked out by the bugs on the ground, and lands on a table, the only place that isn't covered with insects. A sudden burst of blue flames flare up over the bugs. They all start moving quicker, as they light each other on fire and burn to death. The fire spreads out over all the bugs, but appears to be harmless to anything else. Eventually the flames die out, and all the tiny corpses lay everywhere, still smouldering.

The one moth that came out of Corporal Lenart's throat returns to near her. It floats slowly to a few feet in front of her face, then just drops dead right there. It remains floating in mid air, but it turns over on it's side, and dies.

Completely confused Corporal Lenart jumps off the table and rushes through the door. Upon finding there to be no more weird bugs or anything else strange, she falls to her knees and starts crying.

"What the hell is wrong with my head?! What's going on?!" She whines to herself.

Eventually she stops crying and sits up, looking around. She decides to just go to the large door. Beside the heavy steel door, is a key pad, with only three buttons on it. Two of which have arrows and the other a key. Corporal Lenart hits the key button, assuming it to unlock the huge door. The pad beeps and a loud clunk hits the door. She then hits the button with the arrow, pointing up, and the door starts rising. The movement of the gate vibrates the tunnel, dropping dust and dirt everywhere.

The gate opens up to a large pool area, which serves as the waste disposal for the water treatment. However, lots of strange things that couldn't have come from the sewer system lay about in the pool. in one corner is a pile developed on top of an old rusted truck.

Looking in the water in the centre, where nothing breaks the surface of the water, the water looks dark and impossible to determine it's depth. Corporal Lenart approaches the edge of the platform and walks along the edge, coming up to the pile on the truck, still watching the dark area in the water. She reaches into the pile of scraps, and pulls a large pipe out. When she moves the pipe, some things on top of the pile fall over, causing disturbance to the water and loud noise. She stands there, holding her breath, staring at the dark area of the pool, which doesn't appear to have changed at all.

She walks back to where the gate is and holds the pipe out into the water, just moving it around, and seeing if she can touch the bottom with it, which appears impossible. She lifts the pipe out of the water and holds it, ready to throw. Her heart pounding extremely rapidly, she throws the pipe into the water where the shadows are cast. The pipe splashes in and starts to sink out of view. Just before it gets deep enough to exit view, it hits something and floats around it. The water bubbles a little bit, but nothing happens.

"What's the matter, y'scared somethin's gonna jump out at you?" A voice calls out from behind her, which sends chills down her spine. Grabbing the revolver, she spins around and points it out, aiming a man who appears to be in his late forties, to early fifties. he stands there scratching his head through his thin gray hair. A large cigar hanging out the side of his mouth. He wears brown overalls, with tools all over them.

"Whoa now missy, I didn't mean nothin'. You sure are a little brat to be stealin' other people's things though. That there's my gun. I'd like it back." The old man explains, holding out his hand, "Give 'er here. You might hurt yourself with that thing." Corporal Lenart becomes furious with the old man's last comment.

"I _know_ how to use a gun, you stereo-typical piece of shit." The old man, then looks a little angry, and stares at Corporal Lenart a moment. Then he takes the cigar out of his mouth and holds it at his side.

"Listen here, bitch. That's my gun, and I want it back. You don't wanna get hurt now do you?" Just after he finishes speaking, he ducks and grabs Corporal Lenart's wrist, setting it off. He grabs her other arm and slams her against the wall, stepping on her feet, to pin her there against the wall. The force of the slam causes her to drop the revolver. He puts his nose to her shoulder and takes in a whiff of her hair's scent. "Hmm, you smell dirty. The last ones smelled clean." He tells her, as she struggles to get out of his grip, but he overpowers her. He starts rubbing his face all over her shoulder, then moving to her chest, "I love a dirty girl!" He exclaims as he rubs his face on her body. He opens his mouth and takes hold of a button on her shirt, but he suddenly jerks back, vibrating intensely, and letting out a painful scream. Corporal Lenart pulls her arms out of his grip and punches him in the face, hard enough to knock him over. He lays there, barely conscious.

The old man lays there, dizzy and in pain. His foggy vision watches as the girl who just attacked him walks over to the storage room. He lays there a bit, trying to get up, but can't find enough strength to pull himself up. The woman comes back, in her hands is several long objects. his vision is too impaired to be able to identify them, but she walks over to him with them. She puts them on the ground and takes one, stepping over to his arm. An extreme pain tenses in his forearm as a crowbar is thrust through it. He lets out a scream, but barely has enough strength to breathe. Another similar pain strikes his other arm, then his legs, as Corporal Lenart impales all of his limbs to the ground.

Now with one final crowbar, she leans on it, as she stands over him, leaning on the crowbar, with it placed between his legs, close to his groin.

"Now you listen here, you sick pig! Obviously you don't get what just happened, but maybe you will some day. You think you can just rape someone and get away with it?" She pauses a moment, as if letting him think about it, "WRONG MOVE, DUMBASS!!" She screams out as she lifts the crowbar and drives it into his groin. He lets out another agonized scream, and manages to plead to her.

"Just ... kill me, you whore!" Corporal Lenart looks offended and steps over to his side.

"Y'know what? No, I'm not gonna kill you." She crouches down and starts talking in a more angry tone, "I'm gonna leave you here to beg for the rats to come and eat you alive, while you lay and bleed to death!! But it's just too bad there aren't any rats out here." She express a sadistic frown for a second, "Oh, too bad. I guess you'll have to lay there in pain for a couple weeks before you starve and dehydrate and finally keel over!!" She raises her foot and slams it into his ribs as hard as possible, with a satisfying crack popping out from his torso. She kicks him again a few more times, before he finally goes limp. Corporal Lenart just gets angrier.

"You were supposed to live longer so you could die slower, you bastard!!" She screams at the body on the floor.

Accepting his death and moving on, she spits on his dead body and picks up the revolver. Going back to the waste pool she grabs a large board laying against the wall and pulls it over onto the water. The board smacks the surface, and floats there for a minute, long enough for her to run on it and jump to a pile of garbage, and make it to the other side of the pool, without getting wet.

On the other side, Corporal Lenart enters a small room with a ladder set in the middle of it. She climbs up and exits through the rusted manhole cover, to bring her to the cemetary again, in another part of it. The people sitting in front of their graves have disappeared. She climbs out and kicks the cover over.


	14. Checking In

**Chapter Fourteen: Checking In **_Day One; 10:23 p.m._

His footsteps slam against the pavement, running down the street. Up ahead is a large building with a parking lot in front and a sign reading: "Moth Lake Hotel". Trees, on either side of the road, seem to thicken as Aryus comes closer to the hotel. They gain a dark and sinister look to them as well. Their long, thin arms reach out, partly over over the street. Aryus slows down, getting exhausted from running, and finally stops.

Ahead on the road is a figure standing there. Aryus couldn't see it from further back, due to the lack of light. The figure looks like a person wearing a dark trench coat, and long blonde hair. They seem to be looking at the hotel up ahead, but aren't moving at all, with their back turned. Aryus starts walking slowly towards the figure, not sure of whether or not he should be.

As he gets closer, the figure's head lowers, and their arms move. Aryus then thinks back to when he met that woman, who explained a lot to him. He opens his mouth and calls out to the person there, only about ten feet away from him.

"Hello?" The person stands there, as if to be ignoring him. He walks up to the person's side, and looks to see that it's the woman who he had seen earlier. She stands there, her eyes closed, facing down. Her face looks like it has been burned, red marks all over it. Her hands are held out in front of her, which appear purple, as if the circulation has been cut off from them for a long time. He stands there looking at her a moment.

Her eyes suddenly open slightly, and she looks over at Aryus. A quiet voice comes out from her throat.

"You will see..." She pauses a moment, "the terrors faced..." Aryus looks at her, confused, when she closes her eyes again. Suddenly everything fades away into darkness. Everything is gone, as if Aryus has suddenly become blind. He begins to panic and throwing his arms everywhere, trying to find anything, and maybe figure out what's going on.

His vision slowly returns to him, but he is somewhere else now. He finds himself to be in a small house. He's standing in a bedroom, where a little girl lays on a bed, reading a magazine, and listening to music through headphones, as she hums along to the tune. The room has plenty of pictures, and assorted objects all over. The girl looks like she might be nine or ten years old, and has long blonde hair.

Suddenly the door to the bedroom slams open, standing there is a man with a crazed look upon him. Veins stand out all over his neck and arms. Clutched in his hand is one end of a large chain. The girl jumps off of the bed, the headphones falling onto the floor. She stands there, looking at the man, terrified. Her eyes become watery and a few tears come out.

The man steps into the room, his large foot pounding heavily on the floor. He continually opens his mouth and moves his jaw around, making him appear insane. The girl presses herself up against a wall, crying out, "No, no, please...please dad, I don't want..." The man suddenly leaps over to her and holds the chain with both hands up above his head. His head starts bobbing around as he cackles and laughs, with both a sinister and creepy tone, and his tongue flails around as his head shakes. His hands quickly throw themselves to the girl's waist, and he holds her there, towering over her. He picks her up and throws her onto the bed, and leans over her, pulling the chain down across her stomach, tightly. He continues laughing, when blood suddenly flashes out and sprays all over the girl's body. A woman stands in the doorway, holding a shotgun.

The man falls over from the shot, but gets back up onto his feet, bleeding from several holes on his side. He stumbles towards the woman, but only manages one step, and stops there. The woman walks toward the man, an angrily determined look flared in her face. She cocks the shotgun and fires again, right at the man's head. The girl, sitting on the bed, screams out in terror, as the torn up head from the man falls onto the edge of the bed, then slips off. The open neck

bleeds immensely and the body collapses to the floor.

Aryus stands there, completely confused and shocked at what he just witnessed. A sudden flash overcomes his vision, and he gains it again to find himself in another place. He finds himself standing just inside of the house's front door. It appears to be late, and rather unactive outside. The doorbell rings out, and a teen-aged girl comes running up to the door. She appears to possibly be the girl he had just seen. She turns the knob on the door and open it, to reveal two large men in police uniforms. They step inside, and the girl steps away from them. One of the officer's closes the door, before they come further into the house. The woman Aryus saw shoot that man, comes through a doorway into the kitchen, and freezes at the sight of the officers. Both of the officers quickly draw their handguns and shoot at the woman, but only hit her twice, before she ducks around the corner.

The two officers run over to the corner, and one of them is struck with a frying pan, in the hands of the woman. The officer falls down to the floor, laying near a fireplace. The other officer raises his pistol and shoots the woman in the leg, before she swings the frying pan at him, hitting him in the neck, and killing him. The teen-aged girl stands there, staring at the scene, not doing anything, just staring with wide eyes, and a dead expressino on her face.

The woman steps out and looks down at the officer she just killed, when a fire poker slams into the back of her neck. The officer stands there, holding the other end of the fire poker, and pulls it out of her, to stab her again with it, in the back. She falls to her knees, blood developing from her mouth, and she coughes, spitting some out. She turns her head towards the girl, before she collapses, her lifeless eyes staring at the girl standing there.

The officer picks up his pistol and walks over to the girl. She turns her head to look at him, staring at her, when another flash of light alters the world, once again, for Aryus.

He now finds himself standing at the front of a church, where a strange looking, table is. The doors come open, revealing two men pulling a woman into the church. She resists, but isn't strong enough. The woman looks like the one that Aryus had just seen, the one who told him all about what was going on. She struggles and squirms as much as possible, but she remains being pulled by the two men.

They bring her over to the strange table and throw her on top. They pull out chains from underneath and pin the woman down to the table. She tries to scream, but barely manages anything through duct tape over her mouth. One of the men stands up and pulls a lever, opening a hole, which releases a dark liquid onto the table. The strong scent of gasoline fills Aryus' nostrils. He looks down at the woman on the table, who continues struggling and trying to scream.

The two men stand back and stare at the woman on the table. A priest suddenly comes up, with a candle in his hands. He chants in a strange language. Aryus watches the priest, who's face is covered by a silk mask. He stands before the table, and finishes the chant. He then looks down at the woman and lowers the candle, when another flash of light consumes Aryus' vision.

Aryus finds himself back on the road where he had seen the woman, but she's gone now. "It was..." He mutters to himself. He looks around, finding no one around any more. He turns and starts walking to the hotel.

He comes to a stop in the parking lot, looking up at the hotel. A single window on the top floor, which is the third. He watches as some shadows pass over a curtain on the window, and some lights on it change colours.

Aryus looks back down at the front doors, and jumps back with a gasp, to see a strange man standing in them, staring at him. A man with thin, gray, skin, and a bony face. His wide, bloodshot, eyes staring at Aryus. He then stands up straight, taking on a normal face, and turns around, vanishing into thin air. Suddenly, hard footsteps start toward Aryus from down the street. With little other choice, he quickly dashes inside the hotel.

Inside, he finds the hotel to be quite nice. It seems very strange in a place like this. A gigantic chandelier hangs from the tall ceiling, golden lights blaring out dimly from it. The lobby is quite large, and has some fancy furnishings in it. Aryus looks around in amazement, as he approaches the desk.

Just as Aryus comes up to the desk, a small, round, bump comes stretching out from the surface of the desk. Aryus stares as it, as it looks like something bending reality, pushing through the wood. Almost as if the desk is made of rubber, when the bump finally opens around a little bell. Aryus stands there, thinking that he's hallucinating. The bell shakes, and a little ring comes out from it. Aryus stands there in amazement, when a woman comes walking out from a door and up to him at the desk. She has long brown hair, with a strange uniform on. The woman looks at Aryus, and smiles. She looks at him, smiling, for a minute, before she slowly starts tilting her head to her shoulder. An eerie creaking sound seems to come out from no where, as the girl tilts her head, awkwardly.

The girl suddenly reaches up and grabs her eye, tearing it out of the socket, and holds her hand out to Aryus. He looks down at the eyeball in her hand, with no blood having spilt anywhere. On the back of the eye, the stems move and shape themselves into a key. Aryus can't help himself from taking the strange thing from the girl. When he looks back up at her face, another eye has appeared in her head. However her new eye, looks like it has a cross, cut into the pupil. She stands there, strangely, with her head bent over, touching her shoulder.

Aryus turns around, and looks at the eyeball in his hand. Around the iris of the eye, is veins shaping several sixes. He shakes his head and puts it into his pocket.

Looking back up, Aryus gets more confused. He looks at the huge chandelier, which it's glass pieces seem to have stretched down somehow. The strange glass pieces, look almost as if they're still stretching, like they're reachign down towards the floor. One of them stretches out further than the others, and thins out, before it separates and actually drips down in front of Aryus. He looks down at the weird looking little, puddle on the floor, in front of him. The glass looks like it had become a weird kind of mercury, and lays there on the floor, having dripped from the chandelier.

Another one of the things drip down, and it falls right onto Aryus' forehead. He lifts his hand to it and goes to move it, when it acts like glue, sticking to his hand. It stretches out from his head, then snaps onto his fingers. He waves it around, shaking it off, then backs up, avoiding the over glass fragments, dripping down. He watches as the chandelier continues dripping, until it is completely stripped off all glass, and all that remains on it, is the golden, metal frame.

Suddenly, all of the little puddles on the floor start floating up individually. They float back up, turning into glass fragments again, and returning to the chandelier, almost as if to be dripping in reverse.

Aryus clutches his head, completely lost, and turns around. He mutters to himself, "Ooohh, I don't like that chandelier..." When he notices the woman at the desk staring at him. She tilted her head back to normal, but her smile is gone, and her eyes have enlarged, to stare intensely at Aryus. Aryus just looks at her, confused for a moment. Her mouth suddenly opens, quadrupling in size somehow, and black tentacle-like things fly out of it, shaking everywhere, while she lets out a gurgling scream. She only does this for a second, then her mouth closes and she remains standing there, staring at Aryus, who is quite shaken, by all of the weird things going on around him. He remains there, staring at the clerk. Neither of them move, Aryus hardly even breathes.

The woman's head suddenly jerks, almost as if it warped. It was normal, then flashed and was tilted to the side for a second. She 'twitches' again a couple more times, just flashing, as if she's on a damaged video cassette. Aryus continues staring at her in his frozen state. The woman's facial features then start changing rapidly, and andomly. The figure of each eye, her nose, and mouth change, as if switching the picture of them with another. They continue switching

constantly, while Aryus just stares. Finally her face stops changing around and returns to normal, and she smiles.

"Thank you, have a nice stay, while you last here." Her voice says, even though her mouth, and throat don't move at all. She's just standing there, lifelessly. Then she turns and walks into the back room.

Aryus snaps out of his paralysis and shakes his head. "Oh god, what's happening to me?! I'm hallucinating..." He turns and looks at the front doors, where shadowy figures cloud the windows, their eyes piercing through the darkness, staring into his soul. He backs away, coming up to the desk again, quickly spinning around and noticing the little bell has disappeared.

Scared, Aryus dashes to one of the hallways of rooms. On the right side is the rooms, on the left is a glass wall, displaying a large, dark, pool. Aryus glances at the pool, when a door comes flying open, smashing right into the charging priest. Aryus stumbles, nearly falling from the blow. He stumbles over to the glass and leans on it, to keep himself up. He looks over through the glass, and notices a body floating in the middle of the pool, blood flowing out from it, colouring the water. He turns to the door, to find it closed, and not even damaged at all anymore.

A strange sound calls out from the pool, causing Aryus to turn is head back to it.

There in the center of the pool, where the body had been, previously, a figure rises from the water. It's a humanoid shape, but with plenty of small tentacles and organs hanging down from it. The crimson water drips down from all over the thing. It's head looks like a human's skull, but with a jaw that reaches lower. It's head is lowered to an angle which creates a shadow over it's eyes.

Aryus stands there, watching as the strange creature rises out from the water. It floats up to the point where only it's feet are submerged, where it stops. It's head moves up, and just as the shadows open around it's eyes, a flash of light sprays out, and the glass in front of Aryus shatters. He jumps back from the sudden crash, when the door behind him, opens again, hitting him in the back, and pushing him towards the pool.

Aryus stumbles, and slips, but only falls to his knee, at the edge of the pool. Looking down into it, he can see hands reaching up from the bottom, and plenty of bodies, and faces at the bottom. He quirks his head when he notices a certain group of limbs, which have writing carved into them, reading: 'Dead souls shall not impact the living.'

Aryus quickly jerks up his head, to find the creature, staring down at him, a large hook on a chain has appeared in it's, raised, right hand. Aryus throws himself to the side, avoiding an attack, but falling into the water. He surfaces, barely able to keep himself above the surface. His robes weighing him down immensely, cause extreme difficulty for movement.

The demon floats over to Aryus, and starts spinning the hook. In a desperate escape, he dives underwater, towards the hordes of hands reaching at him. The large hook swings through the water, catching Aryus' robes. He squirms, when one of the hands at the bottom reaches his shin and clutches it. The single arm pulls him down, where plenty of other hands grip tightly on his leg. Other arms and hands grab onto his other leg and attach him to the bottom of the pool. He struggles against the entanglement, panicking, and losing breath. The hook swings in again, just barely missing his head. Aryus starts beating at the arms clutching his legs, trying to break free, but none of them even losen their grip. Aryus' breath runs out, and he takes in a deep breath of water.

Aryus takes on a confused look. He stands there, breathing at a quick pace, but still breathing. He looks down at the arms, still clasped to his legs. He gets completely confused "How am I still breathing?!?!" The thought fires through his head. He looks back up and sees the hook swinging down at him. Instantly, he puts up his hand and grabs the chain on the hook. He pulls it tightly down and starts stabbing the arms with it, finally breaking the vices from him. The chain suddenly pulls taught and flies out of the water, with Aryus attached to the end of it.

Aryus releases the chain and lands on the floor, just outside of the pool. He scrambles to stay out of the water, and gets up on his soaked feet. He stumbles around, slipping everywhere, and finally comes to the wall, holding himself up on it. The demon stands there, on top of the pool, staring at him.

Without any further hesitation, Aryus turns and runs through the broken glass wall and charges down the hall. Reaching a corner, he flies around it, and smashes right into a laundry cart, flipping over into it. His head hits a bar and knocks him unconscious...


	15. Trapped

Chapter Fifteen: Trapped Day two; 11:58 a.m.

"Hey there. Will you come play with me?" A little boy, maybe eight years old, inquires to Migel and Lilly. Migel lowers the pistol's aim from the child and looks at Lilly, who seems to really not want him to shoot any of the kids that they've seen. The boy wears a, tucked, black shirt, with a denim coat overtop, and blue jeans. The boy's skin looks pale, almost to the point of looking sick, but he appears unharmed.

Lilly runs up to the boy, who seems so out of place here, "Sure, but first ... do you think you could answer us something? What's going on here? Where is everybody and where'd those monsters come from?" Using a soft, motherly tone with the boy.

The boy scrunches his expression at the questions and looks quizzically at Lilly, "Monsters? What monsters? I've only seen monsters on t.v.," he pauses a moment, glancing around, "and I don't really see how you could miss everybody being around. Nobody's gone and no one's missing."

Lilly looks around, seeing nobody around. She kneels down and puts her hands on the boy's shoulders, looking at him with a look of concern, "There's nobody here, honey, and we're trying to find a way out of this place."

The boy giggles a little bit, and looks at Lilly with a peculiar look, "What'you talkin' about, silly? There's people all around. And if you're lookin' for the exit, there's the great big signs. Like right there," he points off to the side, where there's a game stall, "I don't get how you missed it, it's right there." He puts his arm back down and looks at Lilly, then quickly turns around, seemingly looking at something there. He stares a moment, then turns back, "My daddy's callin' me. C'mon he might be able to help you cwazy people out." He starts prancing off, humming a playful tone. Lilly and Migel follow the boy through the carnival.

The boy leads to a stall which is recognized, but not from where it is now. The stall has the label: 'Drown Your Dad' written with black ink. Inside the stall is a round trough, with a dead body hanging out of it. The boy approaches the body, drowned in the water, and stands there a moment. Lilly turns to Migel, and he shrugs.

"Daddy I found these weird people. They were sayin' stuff like there was monsters around..." He pauses a moment, as if listening to something, then giggles, "I know isn't it just crazy?" The body in the water remains there, motionless, and dead.

Lilly squats down and puts her looks at the boy, a bit worried, "Honey? Is that your dad?"

The boy looks at her as if she asked a stupid question, "Yeah it's my dad. Who'd you think 'e was? Another monster?" He giggles some more.

Lilly looks at the body, then back to the boy, "That man there, your dad ... he's dead. Are you sure you're alright?" Lilly looks disturbed, thinking that the boy must be insane.

The boy looks at the body, then Lilly again, "He's not dead. What is it with you? You see monsters, you're lost, you can't see everybody around, you think my daddy's dead ... are you sure that you're alright? You must have something wrong."

Lilly grabs the boy tightly on his arms and starts screaming at him, hysterically, "NO!! That man is dead! I'm not blind, and I know that there's nobody here!! What is wrong with you?!?!" She shakes the boy while screaming at him, obviously frustrated. The boy just stares at her, now witha blank expression. She looks confused now and turns to Migel.

Migel looks a bit surprised, and thinks, 'Holy shit, someone sure as hell psyched out there.' He just looks at Lilly and shrugs again, not sure of what to do. Suddenly he notices the boy's eyes change to cat-like eyes. They look evil, and shift around, between him and Lilly. Lilly turns back to the boy, and his eyes return to normal.

Instantly, Migel draws his gun and aims at the boy, "Lilly, move!" She looks back at him, noticing the drawn pistol, and becomes frightened.

"No!! He's innocent!!" She turns back to the boy, who still seems normal, but is no longer frozen, he looks at Migel, scared. Lilly turns and puts her arms out, protecting the boy. "Lilly, if you know what's good for you, you'd realize that there's nothing innocent in this place anymore. MOVE!!"

Lilly shakes her head, "Nothing here's innocent?! What about me?! You found me here, does that mean that I'm evil somehow?" Migel just stares at her, stumped.

"I'm telling you, that boy's no real boy, I saw it in his eyes. He isn't a normal kid. Just like those other ones ... he must be killed before he hurts one of us!!" Lilly slowly shakes her head, and glares at Migel, intently. He looks angered and betrayed. His hand shakes a little, not wanting to shoot this woman, but she has proven herself to be an obstacle, and may cause harm to him now, by protecting an antagonist. He stares at her, aiming the pistol at her head, having been trained to kill any obstacles like this, but he can't kill her. She's the only thing around that's still innocent and normal.

Finally, Migel lowers his gun. Lilly becomes less tense, and stands up, the boy standing behind her, clings to her leg, looking around it, still frightened. The boy reaches up as if to get Lilly's attention, when Migel notices the he looks to be reaching more for the shotgun, slung over Lilly's shoulder. The boy pulls the shotgun around Lilly, and shoots at Migel. Seeing the attack coming, Migel leaps to the side, avoiding the shot, but hurting his leg more. The boy cocks the shotgun again, aims up at Lilly's face, and pulls the trigger. Migel takes the opportunity to hold up his pistol and shoot the devilish boy. The bullet hits him right in the neck, killing him instantly, and dropping him to the ground.

Migel puts his hand on the ground, and manages onto his feet, though unstably. He takes the board up to under his shoulder again, "See now what'd I tell you? I told you to let me shoot him. Now look what's happened..." he pauses a moment to shake his head, with a frown, "You ought'ta be damn well glad that there was only one shell in that there shotgun. Oth'wise you'd be dead right about now."

Lilly stands there in a state of shock, having just slapped death right in the face. She looks over at Migel, standing there. "Oh ... my god ..." Not another word manages out from her mouth before she throws her arms around Migel, tears coming to her eyes. "I'm so sorry. He just seemed so pure. I mean how could this place make something so ... innocent?" Migel just stands there, with one arm holding the board, the other at Lilly's side, still holding the Desert Eagle. Lilly pulls herself away from Migel.

"Well I can see where you're comin' from. Just don't do that again, I always have a reason for killing someone ... or something." He explains to Lilly, who looks, extremely, relieved. "C'mon, I think that there would be the exit out of this place." He motions his head towards a path that leads out into the forest, away from the carnival. Lilly turns to see the path and looks back to Migel, baring a large smile, and glad to be getting out of this place.

The two of them head over to the large sign and out into the forest, leaving the carnival and it's mysteries behind. As they proceed into the forest, they come into an excessive darkness, that seems to have just suddenly come down on them. When the darkness cuts view down to about fifteen feet, Lilly becomes a bit paranoid and starts walking closer to Migel. A strange figure starts coming into view. Migel reaches for his handgun, but releases it when he finds the figure to be a car, with teh driver's door open.

Migel approaches the car, inspecting it with his hand resting on his holster. Looking inside the open door, he notices the keys laying on the front seat. He turns to Lilly for a moment, then sits inside the car, taking the keys, and putting them in the ingition. He leaves them there, wondering if the car will lead them out of this wretched place. He turns the ignition and the lights come on.

Up ahead on the path in front of the car, the headlights illuminate what looks like a gigantic spider web, stretched across the path and a little on either side of it as well. Upon discovering the dead end, Lilly collapses to her knees, crying.

"NO!! How can this be here? We need to get out of here." She stops and buries her crying face in her hands. Migel steps out of the car and looks around.

"I don't think we really ought to be here. What says that there isn't something that crawls around on that web thing?" Lilly sits up after he makes this comment, and starts looking around for anything. The web appears motionless just as well as lifeless. Suddenly, the car spits and dies. Lilly screams, then vices her hands around her jaw. "Alright, now I really don't think we should be here."

The two of them turn away from the web and start running. Running back towards the carnival, a dreaded place, but their only option.

As they run, the darkness seems to lighten up a little bit, revealing the trees on either side of the path. Lilly looks over to the one side and notices that there's something in the woods, running at her pace, and in the same direction, as if to be following her from the side. More of the figures appear, just barely visible in the darkness. They look to be a canine shape, but move differently than any normal dog. She slows down, and finds the figures to do the same. Migel slows down, and looks at her. She stops, still looking at the figures. Once she ceases movement, the figures come to a halt and seem to turn towards her. Her eyes widen and she throws out her hand, pointing at them.

Immediately when Migel sees her point, her draws his gun and turns, aiming forth. Right when he turns around, one of the figures leaps into view, at him. he fires the pistol, and grabs the creature by the sides of it's neck and turns as he falls, slamming it on the ground.

The canine demon looks like a wolf, but with several cuts and skinless patches all over it's body. It's claws look longer and more viscous. Dark, murky brown, blood pours out from a bullet hole in the center of it's chest.

Before the wolf can get up, Migel throws himself over it, punching it in the head with full force. He grabs the pistol and fires another bullet right into the wolf's ear, blowing a chunk of it's head off. He turns to the path, and instantly throws the gun at Lilly's foot, hitting her in the ankle, but making her move as another wolf comes flying out from the trees. Migel pulls himself up, as the wolf turns around, facing Lilly and goes after her again, but runs right into an aerial Migel as he tackles the wolf down, beating it in the neck with his knuckles. He pins the wolf down and is about to give it another blow when another wolf comes leaping out, slamming him on the ground. Lilly cowers into a small ditch, scared out of her mind, and unable to do anything else.

Migel takes a claw in his side and is about to have his face bitten, but he shoves his whole fist into the wolf's throat. He holds it like that, then open his hand and manages to grip the inside of the wolf's throat and tears it out it's mouth. Blood sprays everywhere, and he grabs the other wolf again, to break it's neck.

Migel gets up and cleans himself off, before getting his gun and the scared woman. He takes her hand to help her onto her feet and walks off down the path, returning to the carnival.


	16. The Bells Will Toll

**Chapter Sixteen: The Bells Will Toll **_Day one; midnight_

Looking around the cemetery, Corporal Lenart finds herself to be in a whole different section from where the mausoleum is. The ghosts have all returned to their graves. She stands there in the narrow row of gravestones. Looking down at one end of the row, shows it to lead only to a wall. The other direction, leading to a small gate, leaving the cemetery.

She loks down, to find that the manhole she just came out from has disappeared, vanished from existance. The wind blows for a moment, and a skeletal hand comes reaching over the top of a grave. Corporal Lenart jumps back from the sight of it, then just looks at it, curiously.

The hand remains there, clutching the top of the grave. She looks down at the grave and notices that the death date on it for the four people listed is the same, and there's two rectangular spaces underneath the four names. At the top of the tombstone is the family name, 'Preston.'

"Geez, the whole family must've died on the same day." She mutters to herself. Suddenly, another hand appears on top of the grave beside this one. On this gravestone must be hundreds of names, all carved into the stone, unprofessionally. The names are scattered all over, and are barely legible. All of the names seem to be different though. None of them look like they have similar names, or any relevance to each other at all.

When Corporal Lenart looks up from the tombstone, she finds a woman to be standing beside her, just looking at her. The woman's presence startles her enough to make her jump backand almost lose balance. It's the woman that she had seen earlier, with the trench coat and blonde hair. The stitching that held her eyes and mouth closed before has been removed, and she just stands there looking at Corporal Lenart, with an expressionless face. A voice calls out from the woman, but her mouth lacks movement.

"You have no idea ... what it's like," she pauses a moment, just looking at her, "to have a drunken father try to rape you, then get killed right in front of you. To have your own father's blood thrown at you." She takes a step forward, and her eyes become a little bit tensed. "I got through it. I dragged myself forward. I managed onward, but things turn sour when your mother is wanted. You have no idea what it's like to go through all of that, then barely manage to keep going, then no matter how hard you fight, you cannot resist death." She now looks quite angry, but still not moving very much.

Corporal Lenart stnads up straight. "I understand now. I finally understand what's going on." She takes on an assertively relieved look.

"Then you know what must happen." Corporal Lenart nods.

Suddenly the woman there brings out a smile and turns. She stands there a moment, smiling, then vanishes, fading into thin air. Corporal Lenart stands there a moment, thinking. She steps forward, and continue, leading her out through the smaller gate from the cemetery.

She comes out into the forest again. Up ahead, is a path. Following the path, Corporal Lenart comes to a lake side, where a small dock is. She looks out at the misty water. In the distance, she can see what looks like an island. Looking higher, there's some strange shapes in the sky. She looks down at the dock's side. A small rowboat floats there, motionless from the lack of waves. She steps into the boat and picks up the two oars, to start rowing herself out towards the island.


	17. A Toll For Sins

**Chapter Seventeen: A Toll for Sins **_Day Two; 8:45 a.m._

Aryus wakes up, finding himself to be in some kind of dungeon-like place. The walls are made of old, dirty cement bricks. Water fills the room for a few inches, and a stench of decay and mildew fills Aryus' nostrils. The sound of dripping and echos call out through his head. He sits up in the water-logged room. The room has nothing in it, aside from Aryus and a rusted metal door. Pulling himself up to his feet, Aryus goes over to the door and reaches for the handle.

The door opens to reveal a dark hall. The walls are the same as in the room, and the water covers the entire floor. The hall looks as if it goes on forever, until darkness swallows it. The walls seem completely empty aside from two other doors. Aryus steps forward and quietly shuts the door behind him. He checks himself over, to realize that he still has the pistol that the woman gave to him a while ago.

With the pistol in his hand, but no idea where he is, Aryus comes up to the first door, and opens it. Inside, he finds himself to be in front an elevator. there seems to also be a drainage hole, where all the water leads, away from the elevator. As he approaches the elevator, a strange laughing starts calling out in his head. A creepy, sinister giggling, that creates a strong sense of paranoia. Aryus looks around, finding nobody around to be laughing. He points his finger out to the button to call the elevator, and presses it. To his surprise, the light comes on, and the strange giggling ceases.

A loud creaking sound screeches from through the elevator doors, and a low grumbling signifies the elevator coming down. Aryus steps back a little bit from the elevator, and watches the display at the top, as the elevator comes closer. Finally the elevator stops. Dust crumbles from the ceiling, and a couple rocks drops into the water from the elevator. All sounds stop for a second, before the large elevator doors creak and pull open. The elevator opens to reveal blood painted all over inside of it, and several organs litter the walls and floor. Pins and needles hold some of the grotesque items to the walls. A heart, pinned right in the middle of the wall, appears to still be beating, pumping blood out onto the floor.

Frightened, Aryus runs back through the door into the hallway, and looks both ways. To his confusion, the door he had first come through has disappeared. The empty hallway has also changed, creating a very small, narrow, hall, with only two doors in it. Aryus looks back at the elevator, and just shakes his head, before entering the second door.

The chains stretch down toward the floor, painfully pulling at the ceiling. The air remains moist, but the air is filled with the vile stench of decay. Arms, legs, heads, bodies and several limbs are impaled by the chains, hanging out all over the large room. To either side, the room continues infinitely, with the chains giving it a disgusting decorative manner.

In the center, where the door is, the chains form a cleared path to a wall, only about twenty feet from the door. Sitting there, against the wall, in the inches of blood-filled water, is a man. He sits there, with his right knee up, and the other leg laid on the floor, in the dark liquid. One arm rests on top of the raised knee, and he leans slightly on the other one, on his thigh, with his hand submerged in the water. His large gloves, which look more like gauntlets, have stains of violet and crimson all over them. He wears large boots, with straps, wrapping themselves around his shins, and little more than a cloth is wrapped around his waist. His beared chest, appears very muscular, as well as his arms and legs. Two large pins protrude from the top of the man's lowered head. Dried blood has encrusted itself against his bald skull, leading from the two pins.

He remains sitting there, facing down. The door behind Aryus slowly, and quietly closes itself, locking the two men inside the room of atrocious scenery. A church bell rings out in the far distance. The bellman raises his head, facing Aryus, with his eyes closed. Aryus notices a series of strange things coming from the bellman's left eye. They look almost like blood floating in water, as they drift out from his face, swaying around eerily in the air.

The bellman's eyes open, revealing his lack for pupils once again. He gradually stands up, still staring at Aryus with a lack of an expression. Aryus just stands there, frozen, staring at the bellman. The two men stand there, just looking at eachother a moment. A heavy splash echos through the eternity of chains. The bellman steps forward again, coming closer to Aryus, to bring the space between them to a mere five feet. A loud crack fires out from the pistol as Aryus shoots the bellman, hitting him right in the forehead. The bellman's eyes shut themselves tightly, and his head held back a moment. The bellman's head brings itself back to a normal state, facing Aryus. The bellman drops down to his knees, about to fall to the floor. Aryus lowers the gun, and looks down at the bellman.

The pistol suddenly splashes in the water, as Aryus drops it. He clutches his stomach in a pained reflex. He takes on a surprised look and gasps. His mouth remains opened wide a moment as well as his eyes. Slowly, his mouth becomes closed, but his eyes remain widely opened. The bellman's eyes open. He removes his clutched fist from Aryus' stomach and reveals a knife, warm with blood. Aryus coughes, blood raising in the back of his throat. The bellman stnads back up onto his feet and wipes his head, which has yet to shed a single drop of blood. Aryus stands there, staring at his murderer, still clutching his bleeding stomach.

Quickly, the bellman grabs Aryus' shoulder, pulling him to the side and with his other hand, plunges one of the chains right through Aryus' opened stomach. Aryus grunts and coughes up more blood. The bellman grabs the end of the chain sticking out from Aryus' back, the broken ends of his spine sticking out from his body. The bellman pulls the chain through the priest's body and brings him to about half way through the whole chain. The chain is released, and the dead priest hangs there, amongst the several other bodies and limbs. A fresh corpse added to the collection...


	18. Confrontation

**Chapter Eighteen: Confrontation** _Day Three; 1:22 a.m._

Upon returning to the carnival, everything has changed. The stalls, rides, and other carnival items have vanished. All that remains is a clearing. The grass even seems a bit longer now. The fog seems to have lifted, making it possible to see throughout the entire clearing. Migel and Lilly stand there, amazed. At one end of the clearing is a path, the path which Migel and Lilly came to the carnival by. At the other end of the clearing is anohter path, one that leads out of view. Migel and Lilly take little more than a glance at eachotehr, before heading out towards the other path.

The clearing seems so different, without the rides and monsters everywhere. Migel puts his Desert Eagle into his holster, but leaves it ready to pull out at any moment. Lilly just lets the shotgun hang there, slung over her shoulder. The two of them practically dance towards the path in joy for the carnival being gone.

Upon reaching the path, Migel and Lilly are lead through the forest some more. Coming around a bend, the two of them can see a lake up ahead. The sand around the water is a weird gray colour in the darkness. Coming up to the shore, the water looks completely still, almost as if it's frozen there. Migel shifts his foot around in the sand and comes to realize that it's more like ash than sand. He kneels down and runs his hand through it, examining the strange feeling of it.

"Look, there's a boat over there." Lilly exclaims, and points at a small boat, with an old, rusted, motor held up at the back. The front of the boat rests in the water. Lilly runs over to the boat, excitedly. "We might actually get out of this place finally!!"

Migel just stands up and looks out over the lake, and mutters quietly to himself, "Something's not right..." He looks around, finding nothing to be around.

"What's wrong?" Lilly calls out to him from the boat. Migel just stands there looking around a little more, before walking over to her.

"I don't know ... just have this feeling that something isn't right," he pauses a moment, looking out at the lake. Just within view, a small rowboat drifts quietly along the water. There's a person sitting in the boat, rowing calmly. "It's ... another person." Migel announces. Lilly turns and looks out at the person rowing out. She points a little bit ahead of the person rowing.

"Maybe they're going to the island." Lilly assumes. Migel just nods.

"C'mon, let's get this boat in the water and go take a look." he tells Lilly, before he goes to the back of the boat. The two of them give a hefty shove and move the boat into the water. Lilly grabs the edge of the boat and pulls up, getting up to her stomach above the edge of the boat. She struggles to keep herself up, and is about to fall back, when a hand suddenly places itself on the back of her thigh, holding her up and helping her. She looks back and smiles at Migel helping her in. She jerks her head up suddenly at the sight of movement in the bushes and trees. Migel turns to watch the first few carnis come walking out of te forest. Following them is hundreds, maybe thousands more. "Holy shit!" Migel exclaims, before jumping into the boat and pushing the motor down into the water.

Migel heaves on the pull string for the motor, and his arm flies back, almost hitting Lilly, as the cord breaks. Quickly of reflex, he grabs the cord with his other hand before it shoots back into the motor. He pulls it taught and loops it around his hand, as Lilly panics, almost jumping around in the boat. The hordes of carnis continue toward the boat, almost in the water now. Migel's muscles bulge as he pulls with his full might on the cord wrapped tightly around his hand. The motor roars out and spits a few times before the boat starts moving.

He turns to Lilly, sitting down, and tells her, "Y'know, it'd be really great if you knew how to use that thing." He points at the shotgun slung over Lilly's shoulder. She just chuckles a little bit.

"What would that have done? There was thousands of them out there!" she practically screams at Migel. He just sits there and shrugs. Lilly turns around and looks out over the water, to see that the rowboat has stopped at the island and the person is gone.

Once Lilly turns, Migel starts unravelling the cord wire that has bore itself into his left hand. he clenches his teeth as he pulls the rusted wire out. Blood pours out from the lines, sliced, in his hand. The cord snaps back into the motor, and causes Lilly to turn back to him. Instantly, Migel puts his hand to his side, and hides the wound from Lilly. She just looks at him, at the motor, then looks down into the boat and her eyes flare up, her mouth coming open a little bit. Blood from Migel's hand has formed a small puddle in the boat, underneath him.

"Migel, you're bleeding!!" She exclaims and hurries to his side.

"I'm fine, don't worry." he tries to assure her, but she holds his hand up and starts panicking even more.

"Fine?! Look at your hand! Geez!" She moves to his left side, and wades his hand in the water, rushing by. The blood washes off quickly, and she holds his arm up.

"Just sit down, I'll cover it up." he tries to tell her, but she grabs the cloth from which Migel tore from before, and starts wrapping up his hand. "Uh, I think we have a problem." he calmly says, looking at the motor. Lilly quickly looks at the motor, and to the island which is about sixty feet away from them. She hten looks back at Migel. "I don't know how to make that motor stop. It started going once I pulled the cord, and there doesn't seem to be anything on it to shut it off."

Lilly steps over to the front of the boat and just watches the island coming closer to them. "Uh, yeah that would be a problem." The island comes within twenty feet from them, before a gunshot cracks through the air. Migel puts his Desert Eagle back into his holster, with the motor now broken. The boat drops dramatically in speed, just a little way from the shore of the island.

"Figured that would work." Migel calmly says. Lilly laughes and shakes her head.

The boat drifts up to the island and stops from hitting the sand. Migel gets up and steps out of the boat, grabbing the board for support again. Even though his hand and leg are injured and he suffers from a rather great deal of pain just to stand, he still holds his hand out to help Lilly down out of the boat. Lilly looks rather uneasy about getting wet, however.

"C'mon I'll carry you then." Migel tells Lilly, as he wraps his right arm around her legs, causing her to fall down over his shoulder. Slowly, Migel struggles onto dry land, and sets Lilly down on her feet. She stands there a moment, a bit surprised that Migel would be able to carry her with an injured leg like that. He just keeps walking, trying to ignore the pain.

Migel comes walking around a corner, to some stone steps, with Lilly right at his side, holding onto his arm. Looking back, the beaches look to be cleared. Migel turns back and looks at the top of the steps, where large, wooden, doors create the entrance to a huge church. At the top, there's a strange symbol of a circle, with a triangle inside of it, and in the triangle is an odd looking oval, with three streaks coming from it. The symbol look strange, mostly because the different pieces of it are just floating there, not attached to eachother at all.

Migel just ignores the symbol, having seen many things that were more abstract than floating symbols. Bells begin to ring out from the top of the church, even though it looks to not have a bell tower.

The giant doors hit the walls beside them, echoing throughout the church's interior. Migel and Lilly coming walking inside, searching for the person they had seen earlier. The two of them come out into the church's main hall. The bells continue to call out. At the front of the hall, a woman stands with her hands placed on either side of a pedestal, her head facing down.

Migel calls out, "Hello?" The woman remains there, motionless. Migel and Lilly walk into the walkway up to the front and stand there, looking at the strange woman. Suddenly appearing, at one side of the room, is someone wearing a long, dark robe, with plenty of symbols along the ribbons running down his body. His face is skeletal and has a small, spiked helmet on top of it. gripped in his hands, and the tip resting on the floor, is a gigantic sword, with strange markings along it. Another person like this appears at the other side of the room. The two of them just stand there, looking at the newcomers.

A quiet laugh starts echoing out from the woman. She raises her head, and looks at the two people standing there, still laughing quietly to herself. Migel puts his hand on his holster, ready to draw his gun.

"What exactly is so funny?" Migel yells at the woman. The woman stops and takes in a deep breath. A couple footsteps come out from the back of the room.

Looking back, Migel and Lilly see a muscular man standing there, wearing only a cloth, gauntlets, and boots. Gripped in his hands is a chain, connected to a humungous bell. Migel and Lilly don't recognize the bellman, but the woman at the front seems to.

"Isn't it interesting how a man can have so many killed, that he doesn't even remember how many he's done it to? How he can do this, and yet, nobody will do anything to stop him? Do you know why he could do this?" the woman strangely asks Migel and Lilly, who stand in the middle of the hall, Lilly holding herself up close to Migel. "He could do this, simply because it was a 'requirement' of his religion. The other reason, is because he actually had others do it for him. He simply stood there and watched, as an innocent person was burned, right in front of him."

"What're you babbling about?" Migel yells in confusion.

"It's almost the same as another man I know. However, this man knows how many people he killed." she stops for a second, and gives a sinister glare at the pair standing there, "Have you heard of this one family? This family, that a boy decided that he had the need to kill his family. All of them ... except for one. The father ... mother ... brother, and a sister. All of them, dead. Just because the boy felt the sudden need to. Do you know who that family was?" She looks at Lilly, who has tears coming from her eyes. She steps forward and screams at the woman standing there.

"Shut up, bitch!! You think that's a funny?!" The woman just smiles and looks at her.

"Not really, 'little miss over reaction.' I find something else funny though," she chuckles a little bit, "You'll just die from this joke I heard. I heard it a long time ago. It's about a murderer and his victim, walking hand-in-hand towards a dark forest. The victim turns to the other and says, 'I'm scared, mister. I'm scared of those deep, dark woods, there.' The murderer looks at him and replies, 'You're scared? How the hell d'you think I feel? I'm gon'na be walking out of them on my own!" The woman breaks out into laughter.

Lilly stands there, glaring at the woman, seeming rather offended. The woman ceases her laughter and looks at Lilly.

"Y'know what I find somewhat ironic though? That the boy, the boy who murdered his own family, actually found the one person who he didn't manage to kill. They found eachother, and didn't know who they each were. The main reason that they didn't know who they were was because the boy changed his name." she stops there a moment, her smile widening, "he changed his name and got himself a career in which he would be trained to kill. And now, let me tell you what makes the whole story even more interesting. That man who changed his name, changed it to ... Migel ... Halford ... Butch."

Lilly's expression changes completely, from bitter hatred, to utter surprise. She turns around, looking at Migel. He stands there, his hand still on his holster, staring back at Lilly.

"You ... you killed ... my family ... killed .... our family..." Lilly slowly spits out. She instantly lifts the shotgun, pointing it right between his eyes. Her eyes shift, glancing at the Desert Eagle, now aimed at her. The two of them stand there, aiming their guns at eachother, both ready to fire.

"No. I didn't kill my family," Migel calmly says, glaring at Lilly, "you're still alive." Right when he finishes speaking, a hand tenses on it's weapon.

Lilly stands there, facing her family's murderer. Migel stares back, a strong expression of hate in his eyes. Lilly's mouth comes agape, as does Migel's. Lilly's hands tremble, violently, her finger tightly holding the trigger of the shotgun in her hands. "No..."

"Hm." Migel grunts, with an arrogant tone, as a sadistic grin stretches across his face.

The shotgun's barrel remains untouched. No smoke, nothing. No shell was fired. A tear comes out from the corner of Lilly's eye. Another trigger squeezes, and a gunshot screams out.

Lilly looks at Migel, surprised and confused. She has a look of both horror and sorrow.

"I just wanted ... to make sure," he pauses a moment, a tear rolling dwn his face, "...that my little sister, just turned out alright..." He collapses to his knees and brings his hand to his chest, covering the wound he placed in himself. Lilly kneels down with him, just staring at him.

"I'm sorry." Lilly says to Migel, just before he falls to the floor, dead.

Lilly, sits there a moment, looking at her brother's body. She stands up and turns to the woma at the pedestal. The woman, just looks at her, not much of an expression on her face.

"You were only brought here ... to face your nemesis. You can go now." the woman tells Lilly. She then turns and walks through a door, and disappears. The three others in the room walk away, and vanish in their own places.

Lilly walks to the end of the row, and turns back, looking at her brother. She had no idea that he could have changed so much. They had no idea who the other was, until now, but now, he was gone. She had been summoned to this place, to confront her brother, to see the heart that he truly had. Now she had to leave him. She holds up the shotgun and pulls it open, checking the chamber of it. Inside the shotgun, a shell rests there.

Lilly pulls the shell out of the chamber, it's still live, and hasn't been fired. She tosses it to the side, and drops the shotgun.

She takes in a deep breath...


End file.
